starcraft uprising
by timberwolf1337
Summary: following the story by blizzard called uprising. What were to happen if things were different when the queen of blades met jim on char for the first time it could change everything. reviews wanted don't flame to hard still new to writing
1. Chapter 1

PROLOGUE

THE WORLD WENT DARK.

Not just a darkened sky—no mere nightfall could produce such utter darkness. No, this was the dark of captivity, confinement, blindness. Nothing visible, no light, no shadow, only a smothering visual shroud. A stark contrast to the blinding lights and sudden bursts of color from just before. I struggle to make sense of my surroundings. Where am I? Nothing but blankness answers, and an instant later a far larger question looms up, erasing the first. Who am I? A wave of panic rises deep within, bile carried along its edge, threatening to drown me as I realize I cannot remember.

I do not know who I am! Calm, I tell myself. Calm. I force the panic down, pushing it back by sheer will, refusing to let it envelop me. What do you remember, then? Nothing. No, brief flashes. A battle. A war. Horrid, horrible foes, great monstrous beings surrounding me, dwarfing me. Betrayal—though I cannot recall the act itself I can still taste the bitter realization of it. Abandonment. Desperation, a last frenzied struggle. The feel of sinewy flesh pinning me, choking me, killing me. The light fading around me as the numbness creeps in. And now this. Where am I? I stretch my senses to their limit, probing my surroundings. The results, though hazy and disjointed, form a single conclusion.

I am being carried. I can feel the movement, the gentle rocking motion. Not directly—something cushions me, envelops me, holds me all around. But that cushioning is moving, and me with it. I try lashing out, but my limbs will not cooperate. I feel sluggish, drained—drugged. Senses dulled, body leaden, but nerves oddly on fire. I am burning from within! My flesh crawls, creeps, melts, morphs—I have no control over my own form anymore. I am changing. Around me I can feel others shifting. They are not confined as I am—they are free to move, though their minds are oddly blunted. They are my captors, conveying me in my confinement. I can hear their thoughts, slithering across me, through me. A part of me recoils but another part—a newer part—welcomes their intrusion. Vibrates in Tune with their gibbering, allowing the patterns to resonate through me.

Changing me further, bringing me closer to those waiting just beyond. The part that is still me, the old me, recoils in horror. I cannot, I will not become one of these! I must escape! I must be free! My body is captive but my mind soars, reaching out for help, any help. I scream, desperate for anyone to hear. And, far away, I know that my pleas have been heard. Help me! Rubble lay everywhere, evidence of a city in flames, A world in demise. Buildings had fallen, vehicles were crashed and crushed, bodies littered the ground. A sign still stood near the edge of the destruction, its scorched surface reading "Welcome to"—the name New Gettysburg only a jagged hole with blackened edges. All manner of bodies, from the pale flesh of the Terrans to the smooth hides of the protoss to the sinewy blades of the zerg. People, those not yet dead and unable to evacuate, ran screaming, wailing for help. Some brandished weapons, crazed beyond rational thought, desperate to defend themselves and their families. Others cowered, weeping, unable to face the end of their world.

A few hid or ran, hoping to escape their fate. The Swarm ignored them. It had a higher agenda. The battle had not gone as expected. The Terrans had put up a strong fight but with fewer soldiers than anticipated. The protoss, the hated protoss, had appeared as always, gleaming in their battle suits and glowing in their arrogance, but had rapidly lost focus, dividing their attentions as if facing not one but two opponents. In some places the Swarm had sighted Terrans battling protoss, a strange but welcome sight. Yes, it had been a strange battlefield, the sides constantly shifting. But that was for the Overmind to consider and digest. For now, the conflict was over, the battle won. The remaining Terrans posed little threat and the protoss had vanished once the outcome was clear. For some reason they had not razed the planet, a fact which had allowed the Swarm to discover and claim a previously unexpected prize.

Now, their linked minds already turned from this conflict to those stretching out before them, the zerg marshaled their forces and prepared for their victorious departure. One brood cleared a path, removing any obstructions, whether flesh or stone or metal. A second brood followed close behind, its ranks protectively closed around its prize. Near the center several ultralisks moved in close formation, their back-spikes almost touching. Between them were four hydralisks, thick arms linked to support the large oblong they held. Through its rough, sticky shell the cocoon pulsed with light, though its faint glow was lost amid the fires and flares and explosions that had once been this city.

"Carefully," warned the brood's cerebrate, observing their progress through the overlord floating just above the sphere. Because the celebrant itself could Not move, the airborne overlords served as its eyes, ears, and mouth. "The Chrysalis must not be harmed!" Obedient to its will, the ultralisks shifted slightly closer and slowed their pace, allowing more time for the brood before them to open the way. Their heavy feet crushed bone and metal and wood without thought or pause as they lumbered on, shielding the Chrysalis from attack.

"We have it, Master," the cerebrate announced in the depths of its own mind. "We have your prize." "Good." The reply echoed from within, rising from the deep well of the zerg hive-mind. "You must watch over the Chrysalis, and ensure that no harm comes to the creature within it. Go now and keep safe my prize." Accepting the Overmind's orders as always, the cerebrate redoubled its efforts, making sure its brood's defenses were secure. The Chrysalis would be protected at all costs. On the zerg marched, the city burning around them.

At last the Swarm had gathered itself within a vast crater where once the city's vaunted lake had stretched. Now the surface was glass-smooth, seared by the force of the protoss's landing ships and unmarred by the heavy feet that had trekked across toward the city under siege. "We are ready, Master," the cerebrate declared, arraying its brood around the Chrysalis. "I am well pleased, young Cerebrate," the Overmind answered, the warm glow of its benediction washing over the cerebrate and through it all the members of its Swarm. "And so long as my prize remains intact, I shall remain pleased. Thus, its life and yours shall be made as one. As it prospers, so shall you. For you are part of the Swarm.

If ever your flesh should fail, that flesh shall be made anew. That is my covenant with all cerebrates." As the cerebrate swelled with pride, a great darkness descended upon the crater, a shadow of the mass that drifted into view high above them. Beyond the upper reaches of the planet's dying atmosphere hung a massive storm, a swirl of orange and violet gases that spun around strange flickering lights. They moved faster and faster, the colors merging in their fury, until the center of the storm collapsed in upon itsellf, light and color giving way to a shadowy circle far darker than even the space hovering beyond. "Now you have grown strong enough to bear the rigors of warp travel with the Swarm," the Overmind stated, its words sending a thrum of power through the Swarm. "Thus we shall make our exit from this blasted world and secure the Chrysalis within the Hive Cluster upon the planet Char."

As one the first brood rose, soaring high above the ruined city. They broke free of the planet's weak, fading grasp and approached the storm above, pulled into that yawning, beckoning darkness at its center, and vanished. The cerebrate felt their transit through then hive-mind link all zerg shared and allowed a spark of contentment to linger within its own mind. Then the Overmind summoned it as well, and the cerebrate called its brood together, linking them tightly for travel through the warp. They rose from the crater, letting the power of the Swarm fill them as they ascended, and soon the darkness had drowned out all thought, all sense, as it carried them across the vastness of space to their destination. And within the Chrysalis, faintly visible through its thick skin and viscous contents, a body writhed in pain. Though not conscious the figure within shifted, stirred, unable to lie still as the zerg virus penetrated every cell, changing DNA to match their own. Soon the Chrysalis would open and the new zerg would emerge. All the Swarm exulted with the Overmind. And, as they departed and Tarsonis died behind them, the mind trapped within the Chrysalis screamed.

CHAPTER 1  
Jimmy!  
"Aaahh!"  
". . . but of course Mengsk—pardon me, Emperor Arcturus the First—claims this was all necessary. According to his spokesperson, the new Terran Dominion is doing everything necessary to remove the alien threat and make the colonies safe once more. It has been almost two months, however. In this reporter's opinion . . ."Jim Raynor lay back down, eyes staring up at the steel-gray ceiling. He ran one hand over the sweat drenched stubble atop his head and felt himself smile despite the adrenaline still coursing through him. A quick glance showed a hologram playing on his console, the tall, slender man captured within conveying his report with style despite or perhaps because of the battered leather trench coat and slouch hat he wore.

Mike Liberty. One of the few people left Jim called friend. Still reporting on Mengsk, even now. Still trying to get the truth to people who didn't want to hear it. " . . . still reeling from the loss of the Dylarian shipyards," Mike was saying now, and Raynor cocked his head to listen. "Arrest warrants have been issued for James Raynor," his friend was reporting, "though it is still unclear what happened. Why would the hero of Antiga Prime suddenly turn rogue? And why, after so many months saving lives, would he unleash such destruction on the Dylarian shipyards? According to the Dominion Raynor's attack could have crippled the fleet, putting everyone at risk in the case of another alien attack." He could hear Mike's voice dropping and knew what he would see if he glanced up—his friend was leaning forward slightly, a faint smile on his face, suddenly a friend confiding instead of a journalist reporting.

"Perhaps Emperor Arcturus is simply enraged at the thought that anyone could walk away from his new rule, particularly one of his most prized associates. And perhaps these charges have been manufactured as an excuse to pursue Raynor, rather than letting the public realize that perhaps the Emperor's mandate is not as universal as he might claim." "Heh!" He couldn't help laughing at that one. Go get em, Mike! But the hero of Antiga Prime? Where did he come up with this stuff? The accolade was as phony as most of Mengsk's charges against him. Of course, the charges were true this time. He had struck the shipyards. He'd had to.

When he'd belted Duke, Mengsk's favorite lackey, and stormed off the ship after Tarsonis, Raynor had expected to be on his own again or perhaps down to a handful of his troopers. He'd been unprepared for the wave of support walked with him, and he'd found himself the head of a small army. But they were an army without transport, and he knew that Mengsk would never let them leave so easily. So they'd needed ships, and quickly It had seemed safer to go after the shipyards and the vessels housed there than to try stealing active ships from those still loyal to Mengsk. It hadn't been that simple, of course. Mengsk had guessed his move—whatever else he could say about the man, the self-styled emperor was an excellent strategist—and had dispatched Duke in his own flagship, the Hyperion, to head them off. That had been a mistake.

Knowing he wouldn't get any more sleep now, Raynor sat up and rubbed at his jaw under his short beard, grinning at the memory. Duke was a capable ship commander, perhaps, and a good general for all his faults. But he was used to fighting on level ground, going up against fleets and scoutships. He hadn't been  
prepared to wage a battle through the shipyards,  
where his own men couldn't shoot for fear of hitting each other or a ship. Raynor had had no such compunctions. If a ship was holed they moved on to stealing the next one. He'd lured Duke in close, then used the shipyard's own machines to grapple the Hyperion and lock her in place. Then he and his boys had overrun it. Still laughing, Raynor stood up and crossed the room, heading for the handsomely appointed bathroom. Duke's short fuse had cost him the Hyperion, and Mengsk had received the first public defeat of his new Terran Dominion before he'd even declared its formation. Raynor had left with the Hyperion and a dozen other ships, his own private fleet, leaving Duke bound and gagged behind him. Of course, it had gone downhill from there. His smile dropping away, Raynor wrenched open the polished wooden door and glared at the room beyond. Marble sinktops, porcelain tiles, handsome faucets and fixtures—this place looked more like a fancy hotel than a ship captain's quarters. But they had been Mengsk's, and the big man did like his comforts. Raynor had been tempted to rip them all out, but it would have taken too long. He'd considered taking a simpler room for himself, but his crew had insisted.

He was the captain now and these were his quarters. So he put up with the luxury and did his best to concentrate on other things. Unfortunately, there wasn't much else to concentrate on. Since taking the ships Raynor had become Public Enemy Number One. Every soldier in the Dominion was hunting for him, and his face was plastered on every colony. Not that it bothered him—he knew better than most what Mengsk was capable of and what he did to those loyal to him, and had no desire to go back. Being the law didn't change anything. You stood by your people or you weren't worth standing by. Raynor honestly believed that, and Mengsk's betrayal had made his own desertion easy. The question, however, was what to do after he deserted. He hadn't thought much about it at the time, since he'd planned to go off alone. But having others with him changed that. They looked up to him, depended upon him, sat patiently waiting for his orders. And he didn't have any. Oh, they'd stolen the ships, of course. And they'd hit a few outposts, singed a few patrols. But he didn't know what to do next. He didn't know where he was going. It had been six weeks and he still had no idea. All those years as a marshal, Raynor had told himself he was independent, self-sufficient. It had been true, at least in part. He'd survived on his own resources, acted on his own judgment. His mandate had been loose enough and broad enough to give him a lot of freedom. But there had been a mandate: to protect the people of Mar Sara.

After he'd joined Mengsk he'd gotten a new mandate: to protect the people from the Confederacy and from the aliens. What was his mandate now? He'd quit out of rage, he knew. Rage at Mengsk for what he'd done. For whom he'd betrayed. Rage over Kerrigan. He could still taste the fury he'd unleashed at Mengsk for deserting her like that, leaving her to the zerg and whatever else was crawling across the planet's remains. Hell, he could still feel the tender new skin across his knuckles where he'd punched Duke after the ironhaired general had ordered him to stand down.

He was still angry. But being angry wasn't getting him anywhere. And after that initial fury had faded he found he didn't know how to lead the way his people expected. They'd become rebels, but what were they really rebelling against? And how? Mike was a more effective rebel, in his own way, sending out these rogue broadcasts from hidden stations. Reporting on what Mengsk was really doing to consolidate his power and telling people what had really happened with the zerg and the protoss and the Psi-Emitters. The zerg and the protoss. Hell, half the time Raynor thought he sounded raving mad talking about this stuff, or even thinking it. Alien races battling over humanity, acting out some ancient feud, with the colonies caught in the middle? It was insane.

But it was too real. He'd seen too much of it to ever think otherwise. Still, perhaps he was cracking up. That would atleast explain the dreams. They'd been ambushing him since Tarsonis, lying in wait for the instant he closed his eyes each night. As soon as he laid his head down and drifted off, the dreams began Nightmares, really. Each was the same. He was trapped, confined, bound somehow without rope or shackles, unable to move or resist. Shadowy figures hovered over him, pressing in on every side as he lay helpless, wanting to scream but unable to open his mouth. That was the dream. Until last night. This time it had been different. He had not been bound at all, and had retained control of his limbs, though they felt heavy and slow and oddly numb. He was standing on a pale ground, soft grayish-white like old teeth or bleached bone, and every movement kicked up small puffs of it, which drifted across his feet and brushed against his ankles. The material was oddly dry, neither cool nor warm, and disintegrated upon contact.

Ash. He was standing on a field of ash. It stretched as far as the eye could see, coating every surface, even the rocky black hills that rose off to the sides. Clouds of it swirled through the air, obscuring his view of two small purplish moons and a ringed red planet that hung overhead. He could taste the ash when he breathed, feel it coating his lungs. The entire planet was ash, as if it had been razed once and never recovered. But he had more pressing matters than studying the landscape. As he stood, getting his bearings and trying to shake his limbs back to some semblance of activity,dark figures appeared in the distance, closing the gap between them and him with frightening speed. Soon they towered over him, their sulfurous breath hot on his skin. He tried to keep them all in sight and not look at them at the same time, knowing somehow that staring at them would drive him beyond the brink. The quick glimpses he caught in his peripheral vision reminded him of zerg—tough skin and stretched frames exuding tentacles and spikes and spines. But these were larger than any zerg he had faced, darker, distorted. They terrified him, and he could feel his heart racing in his chest, his breath coming short, his skin breaking out in a clammy sweat.

A small whimper escaped him and he clenched his jaw, trying to prevent similar sounds from emerging. Though they were all but brushing against him he found he could somehow slip past these shadowy figures, and in a moment he was shambling across the ash-buried ground, trying not to stumble as he forced his legs to their maximum speed. The hills stood beyond, the distance to them uncertain because the ash hid telltale shadows, but he knew if he could only reach them he could find cover. Plumes of fire and smoke rose behind them—volcanoes, judging from the ash—and he knew the soot and smoke would help hide him from view. If he could make it over the ridge he could vanish into the haze. He could escape. He urged his limbs to cooperate, to move, and ran as fast as he could. It was not enough. The figures were closing in, spines wriggling in anticipation, tentacles lashing the air, and he could hear them hissing their excitement. He could hear their flesh dragging across the ground, sending clouds of ash everywhere. He could even hear the drool dripping from their lips. Soon they would have him surrounded, cut off. Their long limbs would wrap around him, binding him, and the chase would be over. Then the real torment would begin.

Desperate, he wheeled about, searching for a way out, a weapon, anything. He needed help! But nothing was there. Only the ash and the monsters and him. One of the creatures oozed forward, its hard, slick flesh protruding long spines like a crop of hair, and reached for him with spike-studded limbs. His flesh burned where it touched him, acid shooting through his veins as the spikes broke his skin, and he thrashed uncontrollably. His head jerked about, red hair tangling and temporarily obscuring the sight of what was waiting. Then the tentacles tightened and, as his lungs were squeezed dry, a single cry escaped him."Jimmy!"That was when he woke up"It can't be," Raynor mused as shucked his pants and stepped into the shower.

A twist of the silverinlaid handle activated the needle-sharp spray—real water; nothing but the best for Mengsk!—and the shock of ice-cold water removed any last vestige of sleep along with the dirt and sweat and dried blood. He stubbornly shut the shower off after the regulation thirty seconds and waited patiently for the hot air that  
followed, leaving him dry and awake and slightly flushed as he exited and grabbed a cleaner shirt and  
pants from his closet. All the time his mind was still spinning, trying to make sense of the dream, trying to ignore the clues it had received. "It just can't be," he told himself again, tugging on his boots and then sliding into his jacket. The gun belt went around his waist automatically, his blaster settled comfortably at his thigh, and he was heading for the door, snatching up his hat on the way out. The Hyperion was a big ship, a full-sized battle cruiser, and it had ample space for weapons, supplies, and small scoutships. But it had also been Mengsk's flagship, and the former terrorist wasn't about to creep  
down narrow gangways or shuffle up cramped steelrailed ladders. Raynor shook his head yet again as he walked along a broad, carpeted hallway, soft lighting rising from the tasteful wall sconces spaced evenly down both sides. Between the doors, paintings hung.

It all resembled a stately mansion rather than a spaceship, let alone a warship. He wondered if Mengsk was more upset about losing the ship's weapons or about losing the scotch, cigars, and other treats he'd kept onboard. Skipping up the wide curving staircase, Raynor finally reached the command level and, tugging open the heavy door, entered the control room. His control room. It was as ostentatious as ever, a grand ballroom festooned with monitors and consoles, a dining room filled with operating stations, a helm fashioned from wood and tile and blanketed in velvet and silk. "Sir!" Matt Horner saluted from the command chair and made to vacate it, but Raynor waved him back down. Horner was a good man, if a bit young and idealistic—he had actually joined the Sons of Korhal to make a difference and still believed in such things as patriotism and justice. He'd learn someday, though Raynor regretted the fact. For now he was a good second-in-command and an excellent ship captain. "All's quiet, sir," Horner told him, and Raynor nodded, leaning against a console midway between the command chair and the navigation controls.

"What are your orders, sir?" Horner asked, and  
Raynor shrugged. "As you were, son." He saw the disappointment etched across the younger man's face and felt the guilt wash over him again. He'd seen that same look manym times, on Horner and others, in the past few weeks. They had all been so eager to follow him, so convincednhe would lead them to do the right thing. And instead he'd led them here. Here where they sat waiting, doing nothing but fending off the occasional stray ship, biding their time until Mengsk learned their whereabouts and sent the fleet after them. Why weren't they doing more? Raynor knew they wondered that. Every morning Horner asked for orders, and every morning he had none to give. He had lost his sense of direction. Breaking from Mengsk had been the right thing, Raynor was sure of that, but he wasn't ready to attack the Dominion outright and he just couldn't seem to find a good middle ground between inactivity and all-out war. As Horner sank back into the command chair, Raynor let his mind drift again, and once again it returned to the dreams. Particularly to this most recent one. It refused to leave him.

It had been different from all the others, and not just because of the details and his freedom of movement. It had been more intense— the edges sharper, the colors brighter, the air charged with something that had crackled about him, raising his hair on end. Excitement? Fear? Anticipation. Something was going to happen. And soon. "I need a planet, Matt," he said finally, causing the younger man to look up. "Sir?" For an instant Matt's face was blank, his eyespuzzled, and then he lit up. "Yes sir! A new base of perations! A launching point for the revolution! A rallying ground for the—" "No, just a planet," Raynor interrupted, knowing he had to shut his subordinate down quickly. "One that matches a particular description." Stepping up beside Horner, he began inputting details into the navigational system. "Warm," he muttered to himself as he typed, "though not unbearably so. Air a bit sticky and filled with ash. One visible sun. Two small moons. Red ringed planet nearby. Covered in ash, pale gray, at least an inch thick. Some hills and small mountains, black rock rather than dirt.

Fire and smoke all around. Probably volcanoes everywhere. No vegetation or animal life." The terms came back to him easily, a holdover from his days as marshal on Chau Sara describing plots for potential colony use. He finished typing in the description and stepped back as he  
let the computer search its files for a match, staring off into space through the wide portholes that lined the front of the room. It couldn't be her. She was dead. He knew it. He hadn't seen her die, admittedly, and if anyone could survive such odds it would be her, but still... Tarsonis has been overrun. The zerg had taken the entire planet. It had been six weeks. And if she had survived she would have contacted him. Hell, she would have shown up in his room at night, without anyone seeing her slip onboard. Then again, maybe she had. Just not in the way he would have expected. She was a telepath, after all. Sarah Kerrigan. She of the flaming red hair, the emerald-green eyes, and the wide smile. The girl with the knowing look and the deadly grace. Former Ghost, former assassin, formerly Mengsk's most trusted lieutenant.

Kerrigan. His friend. Almost his lover. Certainly the attraction had been there on both sides—they had both felt it. And had almost acted on it more than  
once. But the timing had never been right. That was the way with wars—they got in the way of other had called him a pig the first time they'd met She'd been right—he couldn't help the thoughts that rose when he first saw her, glorious and dangerous and crowned with that mane of firelit hair. But they'd gotten past that. They'd become friends. She and Mike were the only two he'd really trusted out of Mengsk's inner circle, and the three of them had been tighter than brothers, tighter than spouses, experiencing the close bond that only forms when death is the price of failure. Kerrigan. Mengsk had left her to die on Tarsonis, amid the zerg Swarm. And she was calling to him now.

In his dreams. It had to be her. No one else called him Jimmy, not since he'd learned to talk. "Sir?" Horner was gesturing toward the console, and Raynor set aside his reverie to study the readout. NO MATCHES FOUND IN SYSTEM "Damn." He'd hoped Mengsk's maps would have it. At least then he'd know that the place itself was real, if not the dreams about it. "Sir?" Horner was watching him. "Yeah?" "Sir, we could still find it." Raynor thought about it for a second, then shook his head. "Nah. Probably doesn't exist." This time Horner frowned. "Sir, may I?" He gestured at the console, and Raynor nodded. Swiveling it over to the command chair, Horner began typing, his fingers flying across the keys. "Size of moons?" he asked without looking up, and Raynor searched his memory of the dream. "Small," he replied. "Half those of Mar Sara. Purplish in color." The younger man nodded and typed in something else. "Size of ringed planet?" Raynor shut his eyes, trying to recall the brief glimpse he'd had of it. "Say the size of Tarsonis," he said finally."Gravity?" He recalled the feel of his feet on the ground, of the ash swirling about him. "Normal. Full Terran gravity." Then he remembered something else. "High sulfur content in the air. High oxygen count, too." He had felt almost light-headed when breathing, despite the ash's almost choking him.

"Yes, sir." Horner finished typing and entered the search. A moment later three locations sprang up on the map that dominated the central screen. "Three potential matches, sir."  
Raynor just stared at him. "How'd you do that?" This time Horner grinned, flushing slightly. "Used an algorithm, sir. Input the details for the system and cross referenced them with star maps." He indicated the three glowing dots on the screen. "None of them explored, sir. That's why they weren't in the nav system. But based on their suns and planets and moons, these three could fit." "Hunh." Raynor shook his head, impressed. Horner was so eager to please, so quick to obey any order, he sometimes forgot the kid had been helming a starship before joining up. He studied the three locations on the map. The first one was the closest by far. But as he stared at it he felt . . . wrong, somehow. Not bad, not good, just cold, disconnected. He glanced at the second dot. Same feeling. Then he looked at the third dot—and almost fell over from the wave of fear and tension that hit him. He broke out in a sweat just staring at it, and somehow i seemed to flare brighter, though he knew it hadn't. "That's it," he whispered, gesturing toward the third dot, and Horner realigned the screen, centering on the  
dot and focusing in upon it. "Got it, sir," he said as a string of numbers appeared beside it. "Set course?" For a moment Raynor hesitated. That was the world he'd seen in his dreams. He was sure of it.

That was where Kerrigan was. His first impulse was to grab a scoutship and head out alone, at maximum burn. But that wouldn't have been smart. Tarsonis had fallen to the Swarm, and Kerrigan with it. She couldn't have escaped them. That meant they had her. It would explain the nightmarish figures in his dread of the zerg, but more so, somehow more powerful and more terrifying than the creatures he had already faced. Subtlety wasn't the issue here. Speed was. Speed and firepower. Something else, as well. For the first time since they'd hit the shipyards, Raynor felt energized, alive. He had a purpose again. It might not last, but for now it was enough. And his people needed that same purpose. They wanted him to lead them? All right, now he had someplace to lead toward. Stepping over to the command chair, he claimed the mike and switched it to open broadcast through his ships. "Attention, all units," he announced. "This is James Raynor. We are about to mount a rescue mission. I believe some of our people from Tarsonis were taken captive by the zerg. I have coordinates for a planet where I think they were taken." His hands tightened on the mike as he remembered the feel of those creatures closing in. "We're not gonna stand by and let those filthy critters run off with our friends. We're going out there, guns blazing, and we're gonna take them back. And we'll blast every zerg that gets in our way." He took a deep breath, then continued. "We depart in two hours. Anyone who doesn't want to go can leave now. I won't hold you to anything.

This could be a fool's errand we're off on. It could be our deaths. So don't go if you're not ready for that." He glanced at the screen again, and at the dot that seemed to wink at him. "If any of our people are there, I'll tear the place apart to find them. And we won't leave without them." He switched the mike back off and tossed it to Horner. "Matt, set a course, maximum burn." "Yes, sir!" Horner began typing in commands enthusiastically, but paused to look back up at him. "Sir, do you really think so? That some of our people are there? Being held by the zerg?" "I hope so, Matt," Raynor answered, turning away to study the dot again. "I certainly hope so. Two hours later the Hyperion prepared to jump, the rest of Raynor's rebellious little fleet trailing behind it. Ten people had left before the ships could depart, out of over four hundred. The rest had signed on for the mission and whatever came out of it. Most had been excited, jittery, and he knew only part of that was the thought of rescuing fallen comrades. They were all just pleased he had taken decisive action. He was leading, and they were ready to follow. He just hoped they weren't following to their dooms. Sitting in the captain's chair on the Hyperion, Raynor watched as space folded around them, letting the massive ship glide from normal reality and accelerate rapidly toward the ash-covered world of his dreams. We're coming, Kerrigan, he called in his head. I hope you're still there, because we're coming to get you.


	2. Chapter 2

TWO WEEKS LATER RAYNOR STOOD ON THE BRIDGE

And looked down upon the world he had dubbed Char. Even before Horner jockeyed the Hyperion into orbit he could see the smoke rising from several spots around the dull gray world, and the flares of orange and gold that often preceded them. Judging from their preliminary scans the entire planet was caught in the throes of constant volcanic activity and in places it looked as if the ground itself might be unstable, still fluid from the repeated superheating beneath it. They had maneuvered past a larger red planet on their way in, dodging its wide golden rings, and spied two small moons as they braked just beyond Char's atmosphere.

This was definitely it. The world in his dreams. The dreams that still haunted him every night, and sometimes during the day. Yes, they had gotten worse. He was having them more frequently now. Warp travel was exhausting— something about the body not being designed for moving at that speed and the mind not being able to process the information around it. Because of that he, like the rest of his people, had found himself dozing off several times a day, anywhere for a few minutes to an hour. And each time the dreams had returned when he closed his eyes. Nor had they remained the same.

The dream of those horrific zerg like monstrosities looming over him had continued, but with each dream he had less space to run, less room to move, less chance of escape. Less and less hope, as the monsters loomed larger and larger until they blotted out the sky. His body had been altered as well within the dreams. It had stretched and contorted, shifting out of control, twisting and turning as if given a mind of its own and an urgent need to escape his consciousness. At first he had thought it was merely bad luck of the kind that filled bad dreams—tripping over a loose rock, twisting an ankle on uneven ground, fingers slipping from the haft of a gun. But slowly Raynor had realized that these were not accidents. In the dreams his own body was turning against him. It was siding with the monsters, working toward his capture and destruction.

His cries had become weaker as well. The calls of "Jimmy!" had faded to whispers, then to gurgles, then to mere gasps, as his throat tightened against him. Even his voice was no longer his. During the last dream Raynor had stood stock-still as the monsters descended, waiting until they had surrounded him. Then he had dropped to his knees and flung his arms wide, head back, waiting to receive them. He had woken from that dream with a laugh bubbling up his throat, a laugh of joy and victory and exaltation. And something else. A phrase that had wafted through him just as the dream ended, something that reverberated through every cell of his body and set his hairs on end. "Behold the power of that which is yet unborn!" It chilled him to the bone, those words. Because even though he could not identify the speaker, he knew they were talking about him. About her. About Kerrigan. What were they doing to her? Hold on, Raynor had thought desperately that morning as he'd staggered into his bathroom and ducked his head under the faucet to chase the last vestiges away. Hold on, Kerrigan. We're almost there. And now he was. Here he stood on the Hyperion's Bridge, looking down upon Char itself. Knowing that Kerrigan was down there somewhere. If the dreams were right, the zerg were there too.

Raynor didn't see any sign of them but he knew that meant nothing. The deadly Swarm was capable of hiding all traces from even the strongest scans. Hell, he'd walked, slept, and rode right above them on Mar Sara, maybe for months, without ever realizing it. Sometimes he still wondered what would have happened if he hadn't put down near that first outpost, or run into Mike and that bodyguard of his. Would he have been another one of the casualties, his corpse obliterated by the protoss like everything else on the planet? Or had he been destined to get off that world before it died, to leave his home behind and take to the stars on some larger mission? "Sir!" Horner's shout brought Raynor back to the present, and he jerked around. But something caught his eye as he turned, and he stopped, focusing on the peck floating off to one side of Char. The speck that quickly resolved itself into the shape of a Terran Dominion warship. "I see it," Raynor assured his second, shifting to get a better look. "Can we identify it from here?" "Yes, sir." Horner's fingers danced on the keyboard again, and after a second he had an answer. The audible gulp beforehand gave it away. "It's the Norad III, sir." The Norad III. General Duke's ship. "Great." Keeping his eyes on the ship, Raynor backed across the room until he was next to the control chair. "Any signs of support?" "Two carrier ships and a science vessel, plus one cargo hauler," Horner confirmed. Now Raynor could see the smaller smudges beside the first one. "No other battleships?" Horner frowned at his screen and tapped it again, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. "No sir," he finally replied. "The Norad III's by herself." "Hunh." Raynor rubbed his chin, thinking. The Norad III wasn't really by itself, of course—it had four other ships with it, making up a small fleet. But Matt was thinking in terms of a space battle, where the only important ships were the battleships and their fighter complements. If this were war Duke would be here with a half-dozen warships behind him.

That meant this wasn't an all-out attack, on either Char or his little rebellion. Not that Duke could have predicted his arrival here—even if Mengsk had a spy onboard, as Raynor knew was possible, he hadn't given anyone but Horner the coordinates for this place. And he knew Horner was too idealistic to betray him. So if Duke wasn't here for him, why was he here? And without backup? Though then again, the Norad III was a heavy warship, one of the Behemoth class, and could carry more than a thousand soldiers and two dozen star fighters, so he wasn't exactly defenseless. Plus he had those carriers, which meant he had ample ground forces on hand. But you only used ground forces when you didn't want to damage the area. What was there on Char to damage? "Only one way to find out," Raynor decided, and nodded to Horner. Taking the hint, the younger man stood and stepped aside, letting Raynor take the chair. "Matt," he said as he sank into the plush seat, "give the Norad III a holler. No reason not to be neighborly." The younger man stared at him as if he'd gone mad, but did as instructed. A moment later the front screen's expanded view of Char vanished, replaced by a familiar face with a square jaw, a heavy brow, and a head of neatly chopped steel-gray hair. "Raynor!" General Edmund Duke spat at him before the connection had even stabilized. "You've got a lot of nerve showing your face, you mangy dog! I oughta put you down right now!" "Give it your best shot," Raynor replied, feeling his temper rise despite himself. Damn, but Duke always managed to rile him! He steepled his fingers, a gesture he'd seen Mengsk use more than once, to keep from clenching his hands into fists. "You don't have the firepower to take us," he pointed out brusquely.

"The Norad III might take out the Hyperion but we've got ten more ships and you've got only four, and none of them any good in a firefight." He saw the muscle twitch in Duke's jaw and knew he was only saying what the older man already knew. They stared at each other for a minute without speaking. Duke broke the silence. "What do you want here, anyway? Looking to set up your own little kingdom now that you've cut loose?" "I could ask you the same thing," Raynor replied, leaning forward. "Why so far from home? Doesn't the Dominion need you anymore?" "I'm here on a special mission," the general replied pompously. "The Emperor asked me to handle it personally." "Really? Must be important," Raynor said. He tried to keep his face blank, failed, and wound up grinning. "You bringing him a drink? Maybe shining his shoes?" he saw the older man's eyes narrow and knew he'd scored a hit. Duke was such an easy target. His adversary didn't break down, though. Duke was made of stronger stuff than that, and despite his other faults he wasn't stupid. "Wouldn't you like to know?" he replied with a laugh. "Oh, I bet you would. In fact, I bet you're here for the same reason." Had Duke had the dreams too? No, that was impossible—Kerrigan had despised him as much as Raynor did.

But why else would he be here? Maybe Mengsk had dreamed, though. Despite the betrayal that had led to Kerrigan's death the two had been close, and Kerrigan had been one of the former terrorist's most trusted lieutenants. Had she reached out to him, prompting him to send Duke on his behalf? Raynor didn't let any of that show on his face or in his voice when he replied, "Oh? What reason?" "Don't play coy with me, boy," Duke snapped. "I know what's going on here. A lot more than you do, in fact." He looked smug, far too smug for a man who was only bluffing. "You don't know anything," Raynor countered, though he wasn't so sure. He wasn't used to bantering like this, and wished Mike were here. Liberty had a definite gift for talk and probably would have had Duke spouting secrets about his mother by now. "Oh, don't I?" This time it was Duke who grinned. "How're you sleeping, boy?" He knows! Raynor sat back in shock. Why else would he have asked that? Mengsk must have had the same dreams! "Yeah, gotcha," Duke chortled, and Raynor realized he'd let his surprise show. "Like I said, I know what's going on here. Just stay out of my way, boy. If you want to live, that is." "Keep talking, old man," Raynor snapped back. "Keep talking and stay in that shiny ship of yours and don't cross me. I'm not in the mood." The older man's face had paled and his eyes were almost hidden under his brow now. His voice was little more than a rasp as he growled, "Listen, punk! I sure as hell don't take orders from no jumped-up beat cop who thinks he's a rebel!" The muscle in his jaw was practically dancing now, and Raynor thought he could hear the scrape of teeth grinding together. "Only reason I'm not taking you apart right now is I've got other fish to fry! But you give me any more of your lip and I'll storm over there and drown you like the dog you are! I'll personally tear a hole in that fancy ship of yours and plant my boot so far up your—" Raynor cut the signal mid-rant and sat back in his chair. Something wasn't right here; he could feel it. Perhaps because of the time he'd spent with Kerrigan, he had learned to trust his instincts. Something about that whole exchange had been off. Oh, Duke hated him, he knew that; the feeling was certainly mutual. And the older man's antagonism hadn't been faked, especially that last outburst. Nor had the taunts been a lie—Duke did think he knew something Raynor didn't. He was almost certain Mengsk had also had dreams from Kerrigan and had sent Duke to check them out.

So what was wrong? It was Duke's hesitance to fight, he finally decided. The man was practically a rabid dog, and Mengsk had been forced to leash him several times during the war to keep the general from overstepping his bounds and destroying Mengsk's plans with a mindless charge. Even if the Norad III was alone, Duke still would have come after them, at least enough to fire a warning shot or two. Plus he could always send his soldiers and attempt to board—if those carriers were even half-full he'd have enough men to swamp them easily. Why hadn't he? Matt," Raynor called, and Horner was standing at his elbow an instant later. He almost laughed but knew it would offend the younger man. "You sure the Norad III's the only warship nearby?" "Absolutely, sir." Horner's head bobbed up and down. "I did a full sweep, then another two to be sure.

She's got nobody." "Hm." That could just mean Mengsk couldn't spare any other ships. And the Norad III was a capable vessel. "How's she look?" Horner understood him. It was one of the reasons he liked his second—the young man was able to make sense of his verbal shorthand. "Weapons ports open, sir, and shields up. She's definitely in combat mode." He frowned. "I did get two strange things, sir." Raynor waited for him to continue. "Those carriers are reading as more than half-empty. And I got a signal off Char's surface. From the Norad III." "A second reading?" Raynor glanced at the screen, which had reverted to its view of Char. Norad III hovered off to one side, still little more than a smudgy outline. But she was clearly there. Ah, but perhaps not all of her. "Get me Duke again," he ordered, and Horner hopped to obey. A moment later Duke's face was once again on the screen. Raynor was amused to see that the older man's jaw was still just as clenched. "You went down there, didn't you?" he asked immediately, not giving the general a chance to start shouting at him again. "You've already been to the surface. Your carriers are mostly empty. Plus we're getting a reading from your ship down there—one of your shuttles. And it's still there." He watched Duke's face as he spoke, and was pleased to see the other man's eyes narrow farther and his jaw become so rigid it was a wonder he could breathe. "You lost most of your men and at least one shuttle checking the place out." He leaned forward again. "What happened, Duke? Natives too much for you? Already get your butt handed to you?" "Shut your mouth, punk!" Duke finally shouted, losing his temper completely. "You try it, you're so tough! Those zerg'll eat you alive!" "So you did encounter them," Raynor mused aloud. "Too hot for you, eh?" He laughed. "Mengsk won't be happy. Sends you to do a simple task and you botch it royally." "Shut up!" Duke roared. "I didn't fail! She's not here! Or if she is she's got the entire Swarm here with her! Nobody could get her out of that! Nobody!" Then his mouth clamped shut as he realized what he'd said. "I can get her," Raynor assured him, and cut the connection again. He sank back into his seat, excited and chilled at the same time. Kerrigan was here! Duke's ranting had confirmed it. Or at least Mengsk had been convinced she was, which meant Raynor wasn't crazy. Even if this was all some zerg trick, it was better than him just imagining things. That was the excitement. Kerrigan had sent the dreams, and she had meant for him to come here. This was the place. And, despite everything, she might still be alive. Then came the chills. Because this was the world from his dreams, the world of zerg more monstrous than any he'd seen before. And the zerg were definitely here. They'd already defeated Duke and driven him back off the surface. And one thing he had to admit was that Duke was a good man in a fight.

The Norad III was a top-of-the-line battle cruiser, fully loaded. And he'd brought two carriers, each filled with ground troops, most likely the best Mengsk had to offer. But they hadn't been able to hold the surface, or even their drop point. Which meant the zerg were here in force. He had to go down there. He knew that. He'd come this far; he'd never forgive himself if he didn't go. Neither would Kerrigan, for that matter. But what about his people? Could a bunch of ragtag rebels stand where Duke's army had fled? once again he was assailed with doubts. Did he have the right to risk all of them for one woman who might not even still be alive? Could he ask them to risk their own lives for hers? And what kind of leader would ask them to make that choice?"Sir?" Horner stood nearby. "What are your orders?" Raynor rubbed his palms into his eyes, hoping to drive some sense into his brain. He started to tell his second that he didn't know, that he was having questions, but quashed that impulse quickly. That wasn't what Horner wanted to hear. It wasn't what anyone wanted to hear. One thing he had learned from Mengsk was the importance of appearances. Even if you were tearing yourself up inside, you couldn't let it show. Not the leader, anyway. You had to present a calm face, a reassuring voice, and a clear purpose. Otherwise your people lost faith in you. And that was worse than making a mistake, even worse then costing some lives, because once they lost faith they'd be just as lost as you were. "We're going down," he announced, sitting and tapping in the commands for open broadcast. "Make sure the Norad III doesn't pick this up," he instructed, and as Horner hopped back to his station Raynor grabbed the mike. "Attention, all ships," he announced. "This is Raynor. We are going down. I repeat, we are going down. All ships prepare landing parties, heavy gear, full combat mode. Expect opposition. It's gonna get hot down there." He had already clicked off the mike and stood up when Horner stiffened at his console. "Sir!" "What's wrong, Matt?" He was standing at the younger man's side in an instant. "The Norad III's opened her bay, sir!"

"What?" Raynor leaned in closer, studying the read out on Horner's screen. Had he finally pushed Duke far enough to force an attack? "One shuttle and three star fighters," Horner announced a second later, deciphering the scrolling information. "Heading toward the surface, sir." Raynor leaned back, nodding. He could hear the relief in Horner's voice. It wasn't an attack after all. At least, not one on them. He had pushed Duke into action, but not into coming after them—Duke was going planet side again to search for Kerrigan once more. Or to rescue survivors form his earlier attempt. Well, that was fine. Maybe they'd distract the zerg long enough for his people to get in and out safely. "Matt, you've got the ship," he told the younger man, clapping him on the back. "Make sure she's still here when I get back, eh?" The younger man nodded, his face lit with pride, and Raynor knew Horner would give his life to keep the Hyperion safe. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that. Well, we're here, he told himself as he exited the bridge and headed for the shuttle bay. Time to get down there and take a look.


	3. Chapter 3

THE CRATER TURNED OUT TO BE THE TOP OF A long, straight chute. The sides had cooled long ago, but the lava that had erupted through it had been hot enough to melt the rock to glass, and the walls were water-slick and perfectly smooth. Raynor plummeted like a stone, bruising arms and legs whenever he bumped against the sides, careful to keep his head tucked in and his limbs wrapped around his rifle. The fall felt endless but it was probably less than a minute before he spied a glow below him, and then he was curling into a ball and striking the floor hard enough to leave him dizzy and gasping. "All right, sir?" Cavez offered him a hand, and after a minute he took it. The youngster looked unfazed, but then he'd jumped in first and so he'd had a minute to recover. Raynor did his best not to show just how wobbly he was—wouldn't do to let his men see him collapse like a little girl. "Fine, thanks," he rasped, clambering to his feet and leaning back against the wall while he waited for his vision to clear. Behind him he heard a thud and a groan that could only be Mannix, following him down. Ayers were there to help her up and move her out of the way and suddenly Raynor knew he didn't need to worry about looking weak. They'd all need a minute to recover. It was one hell of a drop. He glanced around, squinting to see better. Two glowsticks lay on the ground nearby, producing the light he'd seen, and he realized they'd been lit to provide a clue to the sudden stop at the end. It was a smart move, and he wondered which of the four troopers had thought of it.

The glow wasn't much, but as his eyes adjusted he could make out more of the space where they'd landed. It was broad and high, at least four feet above his head and wide enough for four men abreast. He'd have preferred something narrower, since that would have kept the zerg from mobbing them, but it couldn't be helped. The rough corridor extended in both directions without branches, and he noticed it had a slight incline. The lower end pointed back the way they had come. "Which way, sir?" Mannix asked, wincing slightly as she popped her neck and worked her right shoulder back into joint. Two more pairs had arrived, one fourth their crew, with the others and the full Nemesis squad still topside. "Not sure yet," he admitted, pushing off from the wall and walking a little ways down the corridor. If the zerg were in this tunnel they hadn't noticed them yet or were too far away to be detected. He had a feeling they weren't here—the chute had been long enough to get them down here but that didn't mean it ran all the way to whatever level the Swarm was using. He knew they liked it deep. But the lava had flowed up from here, which meant there had to be a way down from this point. He just had to find it. "All right, Kerrigan," he muttered. "I'm here. Now where the hell are you?" Closing his eyes, he was instantly thrust back into the nightmare version of this world. This time the monster-zerg already had him surrounded, and as he lifted his hands to shield himself he saw that his skin had darkened, but unevenly, his flesh now blotchy and gray, almost green, clearly unhealthy. Yet his body felt strong, capable, and powerful. Energy thrummed through him, invigorating him, setting his hair on end Raynor forced his eyes open again, cutting the dream off abruptly. It had been waiting there for him behind his eyelids, ready to spring the instant he fell into darkness. He was almost afraid to blink, in case it came back into that space and pulled him away. But his gamble had worked.

The dream was stronger here than it had been on the surface. Kerrigan was closer. Walking past his curious troopers, he stalked a dozen paces in the opposite direction and closed his eyes again. One of the zerg was touching him, its scythelike limbs poking into his mottled flesh, but it was not attacking. There was no force behind the thrust, no aggression—it was merely a way of making contact. And through that contact came a voice, deep and cold, a voice that resounded through his bones and sent chills up his spine. Yet for all that, it felt strangely comforting. "Welcome," it said to him. "The Swarm embraces you." The shock of that message popped his eyes back open and Raynor stood there a moment, gasping, before turning back to his crew. "This way," he told them, barely able to spit the words out. The dream had been stronger this time than before. Part of that was the urgency, he knew, some impending event that Kerrigan was desperate to avoid. Part of it was simply that the dreams were getting worse, their story playing out to an unpleasant end he desperately tried not to acknowledge. But part of it was proximity. He was sure he was right. Kerrigan felt closer this way. He was leading his men in the right direction. The corridor dead-ended a hundred paces farther down, but just before that point Cavez spotted a branching. A narrow passage split off to one side, its sharply angled walls and irregular path evidence that it was a natural fissure. The rock here was slate gray rather than black and they could see a darker patch at the far end, either volcanic rock or an opening. Either way it was their best option, and they headed toward it, creeping along single file. Ayers took the lead, with Patel right behind him."It's another passage," Ayers called back, and sounded like he was about to elaborate when he let out a wheeze and then a short gasp. Patel's rifle sounded, the report deafening in that narrow space, and Raynor cursed from his spot four men back. It had to be zerg! And here they were, unable to retreat, unable to form ranks, emerging one by one like peas popped loose from a pod. This was likely to be a slaughter. He had to do something fast to even the odds, and he did it. Grasping a heavy sphere from his belt, he primed it and lobbed it overhand. The grenade flew past him, over Mannix and Cavez and Squire, and disappeared into that darkness where Patel had ventured after Ayers. "Grenade!" Raynor shouted, dropping to a crouch, and Messner behind him and Mannix before him did the same.

He hoped Patel had heard. Then the grenade went off, sending a shock wave back through the passage. The walls shook and slivers of rock fell, slicing flesh and canvas and leather, bouncing off metal. But the ceiling held, the floor didn't crack open, and an instant later Patel called out, "All clear!" They hustled then, stealth forgotten, wading into the smoke and dust, and a minute later Raynor was out of that narrow fissure and into a much wider corridor, his back against the wall, rifle at the ready. Patel had a nasty cut along one arm and looked like he'd been worked over by a dozen large drunks, but he was still standing and still had a grip on his rifle. Ayers hadn't been so lucky. The veteran trooper lay on the ground just beyond the fissure's exit, blood pooling beneath him from the gaping hole in his chest and from the places where his arms had been. The hydralisk had stopped him from shooting by shearing both arms off at the elbow, then it had gutted him. They hadn't even heard the first blow. Fortunately the hydralisk hadn't been expecting a grenade. Judging from the body it had taken the impact full force in the chest and head, and had been squashed like a bug against the far wall. Raynor hoped it had been painful but knew it probably hadn't. "Well, they know we're here," he said, shaking his head. "Nothin' for it, then. Leastways we don't have to be quiet anymore." He clicked his rifle over to full auto, and heard many of the troopers doing the same. "Get hold of the other crews," he told Mannix. "Relay it back if you can't get a signal to them from down here. Get everyone down here. We're gonna need 'em." Mannix nodded and called Messner to her, presumably to coordinate the process of reaching the other teams. Raynor knew he could trust her to take care of it. Soon they'd have everyone down here with them, roughly three hundred troopers. He hoped it would be enough. He watched for another minute as the rest of the two teams made their way through the fissure. Squire and Cavez moved Ayers' remains off to one side. Gina Elani, one of Messner's team, bandaged Patel's arm. Everyone was ready. Then, because this tunnel ran in two directions and he could see several branches already, Raynor gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. More of the monster-zerg were touching him now, their claws and spines jabbing but not penetrating his skin, and the voices had amplified, creating a ringing echo behind his eyes and between his ears. The words were the same, though. "Welcome. The Swarm embraces you." Shuddering, Raynor opened his eyes, reassuring himself that it was just a dream. Then he walked to the other side of the fissure and let the dream take him again. It took all his willpower to come out of it, to step away from that cold, clammy, smothering greeting, but he had his answer. He gestured in that direction."This way," he told his people. As they followed him down the natural hallway, he hoped Kerrigan was worth it. And he hoped the scene in his dream was only an interpretation of her fear, not a peek at what was really going on inside her head. Because if it was accurate, they might all be doomed. And Raynor knew it would be his fault for bringing them here, to this world, to these caverns, to this mess.

The tunnels continued, one leading to another. Raynor used the dreams to find his way through each intersection, following the stronger path each time. And each time he had to force himself back to the present, back to his own flesh and blood, wrenching his mind from that stifling welcome that awaited him in the darkness. The urge to scream welled up within him and he fought it back, tightening his grip on his rifle until he was surprised the barrel and stock didn't have his fingerprints squeezed into the hardened plastic. They encountered several more zerg. Each time it was only a small group of the aliens and each time Raynor's troopers made short work of them, though not without cost. Patel had survived that first attack with a wound to one arm and made it through a second unscathed, only to have his face bitten off by a zergling that leaped from a small hole in the ceiling and tore into him on the way down. Gina Elani, the petite trooper who had bandaged Patel's first wound, was sliced in half by a hydralisk when she stopped to give one of her fallen teammates a hand up. That teammate died as well, his chest ripped open even as Messner fired a full clip into the zerg's back. Others also fell, many Raynor knew only a little and some he didn't even recognize except as names on a list. He vowed to look up every last one of them if he made it out of this alive.

They deserved that much. The small zerg groupings were probably due to the narrow passages and crooked tunnels. Once or twice they found themselves in wide corridors like the first one below the chute, but those never lasted. These caverns were natural, never altered by zerg or any other, and they started and stopped, twisted and turned, dove and rose at random, going from avenuewide to stairwell-narrow in a heartbeat and doubling around razor-edged corners or ribboning off out of sight. Cracks in the floor led to other levels, as did holes in the ceiling, but some of those gaps led to tiny pockets instead, and it was impossible to guess what lay beyond each opening. One trooper died because he dropped down through a crack and fell into a magma pool, burning to ash in an instant. Another thrust his head up through a hole above and cracked his skull against the rocky ceiling of the two-foot-high space. He might have survived if he hadn't broken his neck when he fell back to the tunnel below. Raynor's dreams—they were more like waking visions now, always threatening to overlap reality and overwhelm his sense of self—were all that kept them going. He heard several troopers muttering behind him, wondering how he could possibly know where to go in this maze, but Mannix and the other sergeants shushed them quickly. No one really wanted to believe he didn't know the way, anyway. That would only make this worse. Finally Raynor led them down a short, almost straight tunnel, high enough for him to carry another trooper upright on his shoulders and wide enough for him to fling his arms out without scraping the sides. At the other end was a wide arch, its surface stone but covered by a pulsing gray-black matter that looked less like the fungus it was than exposed brains. It was the zerg ooze, the creep that had showed their presence on several planets as it crept across the surface, matching their spread beneath. It meant that Raynor and his people had finally reached a place here on Char where the zerg had made themselves at home. "Sir!" Cavez pointed, and Raynor followed his gesture, catching his breath as he saw the shape suspended near the center of the arch. It was an eye, a human eye, or at least it would have been if humans grew twenty feet tall. A cluster of thick tendrils trailed behind it and were wrapped around what looked like massive web strands crisscrossing the arch. The eye hung from them like a horribly altered spider, wriggling as they approached its web.

"Somebody blind that ugly sucker!" Raynor shouted, and Squire took aim and fired. A single spike plunged deep into the eye, dead-center on its massive pupil, and with a grating squawk the eye burst, showering them with bits of jellied goo. The tendrils still clung to the web, twitching slightly. "Guess there's no sense knocking," Raynor muttered to Mannix beside him, and she mustered a weak smile in return. The eye had obviously been a sentry, and it had seen them approaching this whole time. The Swarm knew they were here. "Get ready!" Raynor shouted over his shoulder, knowing Mannix would relay his message to the squads too far back to hear him. "We're about to have company!" As if his words had been the trigger, a flutter of shapes appeared on the far side of the arch, casting shadows upon the web there. Then the strands burst and the Swarm was upon them. Earlier, in that fissure, Raynor had wished for more room. Now he would have killed for less. The tunnel here was broad enough for three men to stand together, and the archway filled that width. That meant the zerg had enough space to charge in a cluster, spilling through the arch and threatening to engulf his troopers by numbers alone. A narrower space would have forced the zerg to trickle through instead of flood and they could have held them off more easily. Still, the goal wasn't to hold them but to get past them. Raynor didn't need to close his eyes to know that Kerrigan must be on the other side of that arch. Getting through was going to be a problem, though. He shot a hydralisk through the head with his rifle and then drew his pistol and shot another that had been about to gut Mannix from behind. Steadying his pistol barrel atop and across his rifle, he fired one and then the other, blasting anything in his way. Zerglings were everywhere, leaping at men's heads or chewing through their arms or clamping those massive jaws around their ankles, tangling limbs and guns and leaving them vulnerable.

The hydralisks were right behind them, as were the mutalisks, both using their spikes and blades to carve through the human forces. Raynor saw Squire go down, scythes from two different hydralisks meeting in her chest, her rifle shoved down by the blows and discharging at her feet, kicking up rock shards as the spikes struck the ground. Messner fell beneath a pack of zerglings and was literally ripped apart—Mannix saw it as well and was kind enough to put a bullet through the young trooper's head before he could register the pain. Raynor's troops were good, well-armed and well-trained and wellmotivated, but they were drastically outnumbered. The tight quarters—wide enough for them to be surrounded but not wide enough for them to back away—didn't help. The zerg were all linked together, speaking to each other's minds, and that let them move as a single body. Raynor's people weren't so lucky. They stumbled against one another, blocked one another's shots, and sometimes even shot each other. That didn't help. "We need to get inside!" he shouted to Mannix. They were back-to-back, firing at anything that came too close—more than once he'd had to jerk his gun away to avoid shooting a trooper. "We don't have time for this!" "Let's go!" she shouted back. "Everyone, form up on me! Cover fire!" Not everyone heard her through the tumult, but enough did and some twenty men and women grouped around them, all facing outward. They began walking as a clump, locking step to avoid stumbling, firing in all directions at once. Every time someone emptied a clip the neighbor took over, covering that angle until they had reloaded. The zerg couldn't get to them, couldn't breach that wall of steel and plastic and powder. They made it under the arch, and then they were inside. The rest of the troopers were still in the tunnel, and they waited until Raynor and Mannix were past the arch before unleashing a rain of bullets.

The zerg were forced to turn their attention to the larger threat again and swarmed down the tunnel, leaving the handful around Raynor with a moment to breathe and look around. "What is this place?" one of them, a young man named Fedders, whispered. He was shaking slightly, and Raynor couldn't blame him. What they'd just been through, and what they were seeing now, was enough to shake anyone. This chamber was far larger than the tunnel beyond it, wide enough for a shuttle to fit within and tall enough for one to stand upright without grazing the domed ceiling. The walls were covered in creep, which shed a faint light that pulsed all around them, leaving Raynor slightly nauseous. Zerg moved here and there in the room, smaller zerglings like giant maggots writhing through mounds of creep piled at intervals upon the floor while hydralisks and others stood guard. "It's a breeding ground," Raynor told the others, remembering what Mike and Kerrigan had told him once about an encounter on Antiga Prime. "It's where the zerg are born." At the center of the room was a cluster of zerg, at least forty of them, including hydralisks, ultralisks, and even the airborne mutalisks. Off to the side he spotted two massive, sluglike creatures, their sides pulsating as if lit from within, perched on mounds of creep and festooned with streamers of similar organic material—Raynor remembered they were called cerebrates and were essentially zerg commanders. He could see several zerg eggs, pulsing green and red upon their mounds of creep. But between the zerg at the center he saw something far larger, something that glowed and gave off sparks like small lightning. He knew immediately that was his target."Everyone, on me!" he shouted, raising his rifle and slamming home a fresh clip. "We need to breach that thing!" The zerg heard him coming, or sensed him, or simply anticipated his attack. "Cerebrate!" one of the cerebrates shouted, its voice an odd rasp that cut at Raynor's ears and produced a dull throb behind his eyes. "The Chrysalis is opening! Do not allow any Terrans near it!" The second cerebrate lifted its front end toward the archway and, responding to its mental commands, the lesser zerg pulled away from the cocoon and charged toward the Terrans. The other cerebrate hunched closer to the strange pulsing oblong, like a protective mother warily circling her prize egg. Raynor and his team braced themselves for the moment of contact.

Just before the zerg reached them, however, Mannix pulled a grenade from her vest, primed it, and lobbed it at the approaching creatures. It struck just before a hydralisk and blew the creature apart as it detonated, the blast taking several others with it and battering a dozen more aside. Raynor quickly fired into those dazed zerg, killing them before they could recover. Then the rest were upon them and he was back to firing pistol over rifle and rifle under pistol, swiveling the barrels left and right to keep his front covered. "Get going, sir!" Mannix shouted at him, nodding her chin toward the cocoon. "Take care of that thing! We've got this!" Raynor hesitated only a second, then nodded. "Stay frosty!" he hollered, then fired both guns on full auto in a semicircle before him. The zerg there were blasted to bits, and before any others could fill the gap he had charged through and was past them. Behind him he heard another grenade go off, and the sound of gunfire increased. Mannix and the others were covering his charge. He knew, deep down, that it would probably mean their deaths. They knew it too. But this was the job. This was why they'd come. The creep underfoot clung to his boots and Raynor's outright run turned into a stumbling jog, but he still covered the distance to the cocoon before any other zerg could come after him. He ejected the spent clips from each gun and reloaded as he slowed to avoid crashing into the thing. He targeted the approaching cerebrate, but it paused and swiveled away, inching back until it had vanished into the haze of creep strands that hung in tatters from the ceiling.

Now it was just Raynor and the cocoon. The thing was easily twice his size, he realized as he examined it more closely. Its surface was pocked and pitted, lumpy like thick porridge, and it writhed as he watched. The thing, that shell itself, was alive! It was still giving off sparks, and his hair stood on end as he approached it. But Raynor didn't back away. "Kerrigan?" Reaching out, he set one hand upon the thing, feeling the jolt as his fingers touched it through his gloves. He could just make out a shape within, twisting, limbs flailing against the cocoon's pulpy shell. But this couldn't be Kerrigan even though he could see only a hazy outline, the figure within had too many limbs. Perhaps it was the touch of his hand against it, or the sense of his proximity. Perhaps it was simply a matter of timing. But whatever the reason, as he watched Raynor saw first one limb lash out, then another, striking the cocoon near the top—and slicing through, a wicked spike drilling its way out. The cocoon stretched as the rest of the spike tried to tear free, its sticky surface pushed to the limit. Another hard thrust came from within, a second spike appearing, the cocoon's upper edge distended farther and then it burst like a rotten melon, the skin peeling away and the interior spurting forth. Without the surface tension the rest of the skin fell away limp, pooling on the ground, and Raynor stepped back to avoid suffocating within its slick folds. Thick, oily liquid followed it down, washing across his boots and spreading a thin sheet across the chamber floor. The creep absorbed it and thickened, growing darker, and its pulse became stronger. But Raynor didn't notice that. He was too busy gaping at the figure that stood revealed as the cocoon—what he now remembered the zerg calling a Chrysalis—fell away. Kerrigan was a tall, powerfully built woman with a fine, full figure that had sparked the thoughts that had led to her calling him a pig when they first met. She had pale skin turned almost tan by her travels, piercing green eyes, a lush mouth a little too wide for her heartshaped face, and a glorious mane of fiery red hair she kept tied back when she worked. With her intelligence, her combat skills, and her telepathy, she was a fascinating, graceful, deadly woman. She was the most stunning and infuriating woman Raynor had ever met. This was not Kerrigan. This was some winged horror from his worst nightmares. It was nothing like the woman he had loved. Or, rather, it was. But it wasn't.

Raynor still stared, his weapons forgotten, the battle behind him forgotten. Nothing mattered, nothing even entered his head but the woman—the creature—before him. It had Kerrigan's stature, her build, even her face. The skin was wrong, though, a mottled green that looked slick somehow, like the flesh of a dolphin or a seal. In many places it was hard and glossy, a protective shell, though he could see no pattern to the protection's placement. The armor extended to spikes over one shoulder, at the elbows, along the back of her hands, and along her legs. The eyes were still the same shape but yellow instead of green, a bright yellow with strangely shifting pupils. The hair, that wonderful red hair, was now stalks, somewhere between tentacles and spikes, sharp and cylindrical but limp around her face and segmented like an insect's legs—or a human's bones. The part that threw him the most, however, the part that had made him think it could not be her, was what had torn through the Chrysalis, what he had seen flailing within the cocoon just before that? The wings. This figure had wings, great majestic wings, the wings of a giant bird or a bat—if that creature were armored like an insect and had no fur or feathers or skin for covering. For the wings were nothing more than pairs of elongated, segmented spikes, great hooked claws protruding from her back and reaching down to her knees. Even as he watched they flexed, their tips dripping ichor like a spider's fangs, and he somehow knew they were seeking prey. This figure was not human.

Yet its face, its features they were Kerrigan. Or at least they still bore traces of the woman she had been. It was Kerrigan if she had been twisted, remade as a parody of herself. Kerrigan, transformed. Into zerg. Now the dreams made sense. It had all been real, not just a cry but a warning and a message. She had shown him what was happening to her, bit by bit. He remembered the welcome again, and that sense of both loathing and acceptance that followed it. All of that had come from her. As if to cement his understanding he heard a voice now, both in and out of his head. It was so deep it echoed and so cold it made his teeth ache. And it was a voice he had heard twice before. Once when it welcomed him in his dreams and once when it announced the "power of that which is yet unborn!" Now that voice spoke a third time, its words slithering up and down along his spine. "Arise, my daughter," it cried, and there was no mistaking its exultation. "Arise Kerrigan," it crowed, and all the zerg in the chamber bowed their heads. All except one. "By your will, father," the figure in the Chrysalis remains said proudly, head raised high. Her voice was deeper, more resonant, and it echoed in his ears and in his head as if each word carried layers of meaning and emotion, too much for him to catch all at once. The words rolled across and through him, sending shivers down his spine.

"I live to serve." She stepped down, gracefully exiting the bits of shell and fluid, standing tall in the chamber. Kerrigan had been an imposing woman, her head up to Raynor's shoulder. This new figure could have looked him in the eye, if she had deigned to notice him. She did not, and he couldn't decide if he was relieved or disappointed by that. Despite her radical transformation, he could still see Kerrigan's strength, the vibrancy and purpose that had attracted him in the first place. In some ways he was even more drawn to her now, mesmerized by her new form and the new power he sensed within her. He knew he should be repulsed, sickened, but he was fascinated instead. A part of him wondered if that was also part of her change, if this overwhelming attraction was a chemical or mental assault, but he couldn't believe that, especially since she had not even seen him yet. What the figure did see, however, was the fight near the archway. Mannix and a few of the other troopers were still alive and still battling the zerg, and Raynor watched as the woman's brow furrowed and her eyes blazed with anger."Let all who oppose the Overmind feel the wrath of the Swarm," she announced, her wings flaring out behind her, and at her words the zerg increased their attack, biting and stabbing and slicing with renewed frenzy. Mannix fell to a vicious blow from a hydralisk, her head toppling several meters from her body, and the blow severed another trooper's arm as well. Others fell right behind her, and in a moment Raynor was the only one left alive. He zerg had not survived unscathed, but they didn't seem to notice their losses as the remaining creatures regrouped and turned back toward the center of the chamber, their cerebrate still directing them from its corner of the chamber. "Well done, Cerebrate!" that same strange cold voice boomed again. "What I have wrought this day shall be the undoing of my enemies!" Then every zerg turned toward Raynor, and he felt the wave of their hatred wash over him. "Let not a Terran survive. . . ."The voice commanded. Raynor struggled to raise his rifle. Though he knew the odds were hopeless, he planned to go down fighting. But his rifle wouldn't move. Glancing down, he saw a hand on the barrel, a speckled green hand with blade like nails effortlessly stopping him from bringing the weapon to bear. Looking back up, Raynor found himself meeting the gaze of the creature from the Chrysalis. It was a cold stare, the eyes bright but emotionless, and the pupils danced independently, leaving glittering trails in their wake. It was the look of an alien, with no trace of the woman he had known. "Mother of God," Raynor gasped, unable to stop himself. "Kerrigan, what have they done to you?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Authors Note: This chapters going to be a bit gooey but i don't give a shit. I have been waiting every chapter for this also be aware that when i describe her appearance as quote :going soft" meaning her eyes don't smolder her hair gets soft she looks human that's when her human parts really come out and its quote "the real Kerrigan coming out" the human side of the Queen anyway hope u enjoy.**

THE OTHER ZERG SLOWED TO A STOP, SEVERAL only an arms' reach away. They froze then, unmoving, and Raynor listened dully to the conversation taking place around him, numb despite the fact that his fate hinged upon the outcome. Destroy the Terran," the cerebrate demanded. "The Overmind commands it." "This Terran is mine," the former Kerrigan stated, her tone leaving no room for argument. "I will dispose of him in my own fashion. Leave us." The other zerg remained there, not approaching but not retreating, and she bristled, quite literally, as the spikes that had been her hair rose above her head and her wings arced upward, vibrating with her rage. "Leave us!" she repeated, and the other zerg bowed. "As you command, o Queen," the cerebrate acknowledged. It did not move but somehow it seemed to dim, the pulsing along its sides fading slightly, and Raynor knew it had focused its attention elsewhere. The lesser zerg passed through the arch and vanished from view. Even the giant maggots had disappeared, Raynor realized as he glanced around. The chamber was completely empty save for the two of them and the inactive cerebrate—and the remains of his soldiers here and beyond,mingled with those zerg they had slain. With the Swarm out of sight, Raynor stopped trying to raise his rifle, and she released her grip as well, letting the weapon fall back to his side. He stepped away to stare at her more easily and she met his gaze calmly, her hair settling back down around her face, though the tips angled toward him.

Looking uncomfortably like animate weapons. Her wings also dropped back down to drape around her, but rustled slightly, giving Raynor the uncomfortable sense that they could act without her conscious control. "Sarah," he asked finally, reaching one hand toward her face touching her, fascinated and quite turned on by her altered appearance. "Is that really you?" "To an extent," she replied, the commanding echo fading from her voice and leaving her sounding more like the woman he remembered. She looked down at her hands, turning them this way and that, flexing the long fingers, extending the vicious claws. The tips of her wings echoed the movement. "I'm far more than I once was, Jim." At the sound of his name he started, and she glanced back up at him, her hands clenching into fists. "You shouldn't have come here," she warned him. He thought he heard sorrow, perhaps even pity, in her voice, and that shook him. Sorrow she'd known in plenty, but Kerrigan hadn't been one for pity.

Her words also confused him. He shouldn't have come? "But the dreams," he argued. "I dreamed you were still alive... that somehow . . . you were calling to me." Had he been wrong? Had this all been a mistake? A trick of his own mind? But how could he have known what was happening to her then? How could he have heard that voice inside his head if not through her? She must have been sending those dreams! "I was," she admitted. She seemed to dwindle slightly, the patches on her skin fading, the wings folding in upon themselves, and her hair turning softer and more pliant, until she resembled the Kerrigan of old once more. She turned her face from him, but he could hear the pain in her voice and imagine the look upon her face.

It was the same face he'd imagined when she had called to him for help back on Tarsonis, when Mengsk had left her to die. "While I was in the Chrysalis," she explained, "I instinctively reached out to you and Arcturus telepathically. Apparently, Arcturus sent Duke here to reclaim me. . .." Raynor could hear the bitterness behind that last remark, and in the soft bark of laughter that followed. "Yeah, he's a little busy building an empire," he said, "so he sent his lapdog to stand in." He laughed. "You shoulda seen his face when I showed up." She smiled, a sad smile but a familiar one. "I can imagine." "I'm here now, though," Raynor pointed out. "And so are you. We can get you outta here, Kerrigan. We can get you someplace safe." We can undo what they did to you, he wanted to say, but couldn't Not that he needed to—Kerrigan had been able to answer his thoughts even before, and now she seemed far more powerful. She was already shaking her head, and the mottling was resurfacing, as if reflecting the turmoil within. "But that was then, Jim," she told him, turning to face him again. "I'm one of the zerg now. And I like what I am." She raised her arms high, the shell-like spots shifting across her limbs and torso as she moved, creating a moving layer of protection. Her hair rose and reached for the roof as well, yearning upward, and her wings rose to their full extension, flaring out behind her. Even in the dim light of the creep, he could see her eyes flashing. "You can't imagine how this feels . . . ," she told him finally, lowering her arms again, and somehow he knew she was talking about more than just the physical changes. The wings remained up, as if determined to remind him how much she had changed.

"I am one with the zerg now," she said, smiling. "It is wonderful, Jimmy. It envelops me. It makes me whole. I can never be alone again." "They called you a queen," Raynor said, remembering the cerebrate's comment as he left, and her smile grew wider. "Yes, I am. The Queen of Blades." She raised her right hand, fingers spread wide, and the blades sprouting from her fingertips rippled in response. So did the spikes on her head and the wings at her back. "Guess you're not gonna give up bein' royalty," he said, shaking his head. She didn't bother to reply; she didn't need to. He could read her reply in her smile. "So what?" Raynor asked, backing a step away and shifting the grip on his rifle in case he needed to raise it suddenly. "Are you goin' to kill me now, darlin'?" "It is certainly within my power," she told him, and he knew she was right. Even before her transformation Kerrigan had been the deadliest fighter he'd ever seen. Her skill with a gun was amazing, but her prowess with knives was nothing short of phenomenal. He could only guess what she could do now with the blades part of her own body and her stature and speed enhanced by the change. Mike had told him once about Kerrigan's killing an entire roomful of soldiers single-handedly, in a matter of minutes, without ever being touched. She probably could have handled all the troopers by the archway on her own now. A part of him wanted to see her in action, to admire her new talents. The rest of him wanted to run screaming. Instead he stood very still and waited to see what she decided. The ball was definitely in her court. Kerrigan flexed her finger-blades again, waving them menacingly in his direction, and for an instant Raynor thought he was dead. She was still smiling that sad smile from her past, however, and she did not move to close the distance between them. "But you're not a threat to me, Jim," she told him finally, stepping away and widening the gap. "Be smart," she warned him, that echo creeping back into her voice. "Leave here now, and never seek to confront the zerg again." That last statement was issued like a command, and he felt the force of her words and of her personality bearing down on him, compelling him to submit. " Doesn't look like I have much choice," he muttered, hoping that would be enough to placate her. For a moment they stood there, both armed but neither attacking, the tension almost visible between them, like a flicker of light. Then the moment passed and Kerrigan turned, dismissing him utterly. No Jim thought if she leaves now its over I couldn't stand to lose her again and then there's was no question of what he had to do he called out Sara this would end in two ways she would kill him were he stood and he would wait for her in heaven or the next life or they wold find a way to prevail. Before she even turned around he was on her he couldn't stand to be away from her again he couldn't lose her he knew what he had to do before she even turned around he was on her kissing her furiously he should of did this long ago but they ever had a second a minute to relax. Constant battles and stress saw to that now they were the only two in the world that mattered. The best part she kissed him back she was hungry for him as he was for her her appearance took on the more human look her wings folded in and her eyes went light orange/yellow she look anything like a monster she really just looked like a beautiful girl from a ways away and angel of death so to speak finally they had to break Raynor was panting but Sara held fast waiting to see what this was about. holding hands staring into each other eyes while Jim stroked the top of her hands with his thumb Jim continued.

Sara please don't leave me when i thought you were dead i cant describe the feeling i had nothing to live for i really didn't, Mengsk, the crew. No one meant anything anymore then i had the dreams i was willing to do anything for the chance to see you he paused Sara your the most magnificent girl i have ever met if we and be together i don't want to live. I sure as hell don't want to fight you please Sara i just want to be with you i should of done that a long time ago. Sara didn't say anything her eyes told the whole story they were barely lit he could see her pupils her wings folded in. Her eyes light she says i know Jim i wish it to but its impossible she then leaned into him and whispered i don't even know if its possibly but besides the fact she looked around and whispered i have my self control im still under control of the Overmind i cant Jim if i were to do anything he would know she then went back to holding his hands. No Sara he snapped one thing i have learned weather its assassinating a single man in front of 100 armed guards or leading a rag tag group of raiders but that there's always hope you just have to dig deep something to find it his softened and begging he said please Sara i cant be with out you the swarm completed you like you compelled me. Please everything is possibly if we make it. please Sara find a way. Sara didn't know what to do she was more conflicted then she has ever been she leaned her head on his shoulder and whispered Jim you soft soft man she stepped back alright Jim i can see it in your eyes your desperate i will find a way but until then be smart get out of here she hissed. Don't engage the swarm give me a few weeks i will contact you some how don't worry you will know its me until then just wait ill see what i can do and Jim she finished are you sure this is what you want because if it is you will lose everything. Yes Sara i already have when Mengsk left you he hissed he was on the verge of tears its alright Jim she said in a soothing voice im here and im not going any where. now go i will contact you and with that she put her head on his shoulder they just sat there holding each other knowing everything would be ok man this body is hot i would do it without a second thought Jim thought and with that he felt a slap on the shoulder and her zerg voice returned you pig! she said what? he asked as he moved his head to look at her chuckling she stepped back slowly im sorry Jim i have to go or this insane plan i agreed to wont work get out of here but Jim do know if you do this you will lose yourself there is no coming back what we have to do will never be forgotten are you sure you want to do this Jim looked determinately in her eyes and said yes Sara i would do anything for you ok Jim ok and with that she kissed his cheek and spun on her heals and walked away.

As Kerrigan turned away her skin paled, then became transparent. In an eyeblink she had vanished completely, fading from the edges in until finally nothing remained. Raynor was was still nearby, he knew. She had gone invisible, just as she had done when she'd been a Ghost. He'd thought the process required a specialized suit of combat armor. Apparently he'd been wrong. Or perhaps the Queen of Blades simply no longer required such Queen of Blades. The name sent a chill racing through him. By adopting that title, she had made it clear that the transformation had been a full success. Sarah Kerrigan was not gone. but shes not alone the Queen of Blades was also there in some weird way there both there they are the same person just different he didn't really understand but perhaps he would in time.

Still, she had let him live, and Raynor certainly wasn't complaining about that. Holstering his pistol but keeping the rifle ready, he staggered back to the archway and through it, forcing himself to examine the remains of his team as he passed them. They'd earned the right to hold his gaze, and it would be insulting for him to look away just because it made him uncomfortable. He made sure he knew each face, each name, before turning away and passing through the arch again. There were more troopers on the far side, most of them stretched out on the floor. But a few still stood, leaning against the tunnel walls, and these gave a ragged cheer when he appeared."Sir!" It was Cavez, bandaged and battered but still alive. The tall young man limped over to Raynor as he carefully stepped through the pile of bodies littering the ground. "Are you all right?" "I'll live," Raynor admitted, embarrassed to realize that he had not been wounded beyond a few scrapes and cuts. Cavez was far worse off, but here was the trooper asking about his health instead of the other way around. Still, he knew it was more than just his wound status that Cavez was checking on. The trooper wanted to know whether Raynor was prepared to take charge again. I'm not fit to lead, Raynor thought as he studied the handful of survivors. It's my fault you're hurt, my fault your friends are dead, my fault we're here. I dragged us across the galaxy and sacrificed a hundred or more men just to chase down a woman who doesn't even want me around. Put that way it sounded ridiculous, and he had to stop himself from laughing—he could feel the laughter bubbling up inside, fueled by nearhysteria, and he knew that if he started laughing he might not stop. Instead he forced himself to concentrate. Cavez was hurt, as were most of the others. He needed to get them to a medic, and that meant getting topside again. "Right," he called out, "find a partner and form up! We've got to retrace our steps as best we can. There might be faster ways out, so keep your eyes peeled for those, too. Let's go."He motioned Cavez to fall in with him and together they marched back down the corridor, checking the sides and up above for any sign of the zerg not that he thinks Sara would let them attack anyway but better safe then sorry. But they saw only rock and bits of creep. Whatever zerg had survived the recent battle were gone.

Raynor tried not to think about where they might be now. It took hours for the battered band to reach the surface. They saw no zerg along the way but still had to contend with confounding directions, irregular passages, unstable tunnels, boiling magma pits, and other dangers. Most of the surviving troopers were wounded, no one not well enough to walk back but several not fit enough to be of much use after so much hiking, and they moved slowly even in the wide, straight tunnels. Raynor had one of the men out front as a scout and another in back as a rear guard, the two soldiers instructed to stay as far away from the rest as was safe,as quiet as possible, and as observant as anything. Neither of them called in any problems, not that he'd expected any. Kerrigan—he still couldn't manage to call her "the Queen of Blades," even to himself altho if his plan succeeded he would probibly be the King of Blades but Sara had been awakened now as part of some larger plan, judging from what that voice had said. The zerg they'd seen so far on Char were probably all scurrying to be part of whatever she intended. That would definitely keep them all busy while Raynor and his people escaped onto the surface once more. He'd figure out their next move once they were all back above ground where they belonged. "If man was meant to live in caves," he muttered, "he'd have much thicker skin, much weaker eyes, a thick fur coat, and a serious slouch. That's why we invented lifts, lights, and lasers." "What was that, sir?" the nearest trooper asked, tilting a bandaged head in his direction. "Nothin', son," Raynor replied. "Nothin' at all." They followed the same path back that they'd taken down, at least as far as they could. In several places they had to deviate—at one point a cave-in had apparently occurred after they'd left, perhaps triggered by the fighting down below, and a narrow path was sealed tight with rubble, the air around it thick with dust. A tunnel they'd used before was still there, but whereas it had been a steep slope down, now it was a steep climb up, with nothing but glass-slick walls on either side, and Raynor didn't think any of them could make that trip in their current state, including him. Both times they scouted the area and eventually found an alternate route that took them away from their original entrance point but kept them heading upward. That was the most important thing, Raynor felt; to keep moving up, toward the surface and the sky and the ships.

Popping up a mile away from their starting point wouldn't matter as long as they did eventually pop back up. The idea of staying down here forever was far too depressing to consider for very long, and he shoved the thought away every time it surfaced. Finally Cavez, who had taken the role of lead scout, came running back down a corridor, a big grin plastered across his dirty, blood-smeared face. "I can see daylight, sir!" he announced happily, and the others cheered and laughed and shouted. A few even cried, and no one razzed them for it. "Good man," Raynor said, blinking back tears himself. "Lead the way." He followed close behind the young trooper, and sure enough he soon stood at the base of a short, wide chute that showed sunlight at the top. The distance was too far to jump but they gave one of the troopers, a thick-bodied man named Non, a boost up into the chute. He pressed his back against one wall and thrust his legs straight out in front of him, his feet solidly against the wall opposite. Then, his arms spread wide for balance, he began walking his way slowly up the chute. It took half an hour, but eventually he was able to peek over the rim. "All clear, sir," he called back down, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Raynor had been afraid of another Ayers tragedy and was glad this time was different. "Over the edge, soldier," he called up. "This is no time for sightseeing." Non chuckled, saluted, and shoved hard with his back and legs, swinging his arms up and forward at the same time. His back left the wall just as his hands caught the opposing lip, and he levered himself over the edge and out of the chute altogether. A moment later his face reappeared, and he dropped a rope to the others waiting below. Raynor handed it to Cavez, who was fast and light, and the trooper walked up it quickly until Non was able to reach down and help him the rest of the way. Then the two of them began hauling everyone else up out of the tunnels. When it was finally his turn Raynor tried his best to help them, bracing himself against the chute wall with his back and his feet, but he was exhausted and still a bit numb and finally he gave up and let them pull him up, doing little to aid their efforts. At last one of the troopers, Ling, reached down and clasped his hand, and Raynor used the added leverage to pull himself over the chute's lip and back onto solid ground. He collapsed, ignoring the ash that rose about him and turned him chalk-white from its debris, and simply lay there for a moment, staring up at the sky. Then the day's events caught up with him and, without intending it, he closed his eyes.

**Authors note: sorry guys i have been trying to throw out chapters every day to get as many as i can because i knew this would happin im getting busy and stuff is taking time for 3 reasons 1 its getting warm in new York witch means im out and about enjoying the air and 2 im finishing up school i got like 5 or 6 weeks left then its summer vacation and 3 the reason i have been able to nonstop pump out chapters s cuz i wasn't doing any thing to them i was fixing the way the text was set up that takes an hour. Where as this chapter i added stuff and it took 6 hrs so im getting busy but i have an idea im going to my grandparents Saturday so i can set it up so i can just write all day long on the drive up while im there and on the way back so we will see how it goes but my whole point is chapters are going to slow down no i wont forget im going to be trying to write as much as i can im loving the story and have a lot of ideas for it but im just busy so we will see how the next few weeks go thanks please read and review.**


	5. Chapter 5

THIS TIME THE DREAM WAS DIFFERENT, IF DREAM it was. He was standing in a thick, rough-walled tunnel, able to see the stone walls and floor clearly despite the lack of light. He could feel the rock beneath his bare feet, taste the hint of sulfur in the air, scent a tantalizing trace of blood and flesh in the still, stale air. His senses were alive, his body tingling with energy. He felt amazing. The zerg were all around him, as they had been in so many of his dreams, but they weren't frightening anymore. They had shrunk, for one thing, or he had grown—either way, the creatures no longer towered above him but were at eye level or lower. They were not crowding him, either, merely standing nearby. And the air of unfamiliarity, of strangeness, of distance, had faded, only a hint remaining around the edges. Before these had been monsters, horrifying creatures whose very forms he could not comprehend, let alone their minds and motives. Now he understood them all too easily, and that lack of mystery stripped away his fear. How could he be afraid of these creatures when he knew their names and could speak to them as an equalor even a superior? In fact, he was speaking to them now, he realized. But the words pouring from his mouth were not in fact  
his. They were Kerrigan's. She was addressing the enormous sluglike creature, the one that resembled a flesh-cannon, the cerebrate.

"Cerebrate," she told him, "you watched over me during my 'incubation,' and I am grateful to you." It fluttered slightly, and he was surprised to realize it was pleased and proud. It had never occurred to him that zerg might possess such emotions, and a part of his mind wondered if he was simply assigning human traits in an effort to understand them better. That felt right, and he suddenly realized he was not the only one having this thought. Kerrigan had thought much the same thing and reached the same conclusion. The mind sought to apply familiar patterns when facing unfamiliar events or beings, and despite her recent transformation a large portion of Kerrigan's mind was still human. "It is my wish that you continue your vigil," she was saying now, "so that I might strengthen my powers to better aid the Swarm.

"Yes Raynor thought soon they would be the ultimate force in the galaxy no one will stop the Swarm he shook himself were did that come from he wondered is Sara putting thoughts in his head No he thought she wouldn't do. then he realized he genuinely wanted the Swarm to destroy everything if it meant he could be with Sara he didn't care he would sacrifice everything he already had tho he has nothing left to sacrifice. He had missed the last thing she said while he was mentally flailing, and now the second cerebrate, the one that had stayed near her Chrysalis during her emergence, was speaking. It amazed Raynor that he could tell the creatures apart so easily having Sara knowledge on the Swarm was extremely useful he then realized that the swarm is not mindless beasts hell bent on death it was something else that made them like that "Though you be the favored servant of the Overmind," this cerebrate snapped, and Raynor could hear the anger in its voice, "you would do well to remember that you are just a servant. You know of our grand mission, Kerrigan. Would you put your personal whims before the will of the Overmind?" The other zerg backed away, feeling the tension stretched between their two commanders and anticipating a fight. Raynor expected it as well, knowing Kerrigan's temper better than most, and so he was surprised when she did not attack the cerebrate, which appeared to have no physical defenses.

Instead she simply straightened and gave him a single hard, haughty glance. Her bone-wings stirred, however, and flexed toward the cerebrate, eager to carve the slug to shreds. Raynor could sense Kerrigan's response to that as well: part horror that a part of her new body could be so disobedient and willful, and part delight that her new form possessed such protective instincts of its own. "Do not cross me, Zasz," she warned him, chin high, eyes narrowed. "I will do as I see fit." Then deliberately, insultingly, she turned her back on him. "And not you or any other cerebrate shall stand in my way." Zasz bristled at her tone and her clear snub. The organic cannon body tensed and its inner light began pulsing more rapidly until the entire body was aglow with quick flashes of light. Several of the surrounding zerg edged closer, chittering their leader's rage, claws and spines and scythes raised to strike on the cerebrate's behalf. The fool was going to attack! Raynor could feel it, and a surge of excitement shot through him, a surge he knew immediately was not his own.

Kerrigan had known what she was doing when she spoke. She had deliberately pushed the cerebrate beyond his breaking point. She wanted Zasz to order an attack so she could destroy him and claim his brood as her own. And she would destroy him, Raynor knew that's my girl Jim thought yes Sara destroy him the more power you hold the more likely our plan will work. The cerebrate was a leader, a strategist, not a fighter. Kerrigan was both, especially in this new incarnation. The cerebrate was immobile, vulnerable, and relied upon its brood to fight for it, while Kerrigan could outfight any of them. She would carve her way through the other zerg and then destroy Zasz himself. But before the cerebrate's brood could attack a voice cut across them all, paralyzing them with its deep timbre and rolling pronunciation, a wave of sound that washed over them and left them stunned and speechless.

It was a voice Raynor had heard before, though he had fervently hoped not to hear it again. "Let her go, Zasz," the voice intoned. "The greatness of her spirit has been left to her that the Swarm might benefit from her fierce example. Fear not her designs, for she is bound to me as intimately as any cerebrate." The voice chuckled, the sound leaving Raynor feeling dirty somehow, as if it demonstrated a humor beyond his ability to understand and one that found amusement with concepts and actions he would find repugnant. "Truly," it explained, "no zerg can stray from my will, for all that you are lies wholly within me. Kerrigan is free to do as she desires." The voice faded, leaving Raynor weak in the knees and short of breath, and he knew he was not the only one reacting so strongly. Kerrigan had been overwhelmed by the voice as well, and so had Zasz and the others. The cerebrate quickly untensed. Its brood members backed away as well, lowering their limbs to show they meant no more harm. "By your will, Overmind," he acknowledged. Raynor knew the creature had hoped for a different decision, but he also knew that they would not have to worry about this cerebrate, unless and until the situation changed. No zerg would dare stand against the Overmind's orders, he realized. Until that voice spoke, Zasz had been determined to convince Kerrigan to do things his way, by force if necessary. Now the Overmind had instructed otherwise, and the cerebrate would carry out those directives to the best of its ability.

"Cerebrate," Zasz said, apparently to the second cerebrate. "You must see that she comes to no harm. My brood will remain behind to protect the incubation chamber from further desecration.""My brood will die to protect her," the other cerebrate replied. "As it should," Kerrigan stated simply. Raynor felt her turn and walk away, taking it for granted that the second cerebrate's brood would follow. And they did. Raynor knew now, through Kerrigan's thoughts, that the cerebrates themselves did not travel—they were too large and bulky to move. Instead they led their troops mentally, particularly through their overlords. Thus both of these cerebrates could remain in the incubation chamber, but Zasz would be focused upon events here while the other cerebrate's mind would be following the activities of its brood, which would accompany Kerrigan. Another cerebrate sat in one corner of the chamber. Raynor had not noticed it there before; it had somehow masked its presence before this. Now he saw it plainly, however, and somehow knew that this cerebrate was older and more powerful even than Zasz. Indeed, this third cerebrate, Daggoth, was the Overmind's right hand. Daggoth's brood was clustered about it, and now several hydralisks detached themselves from this cluster and approached Kerrigan.

"Cerebrate, take these, the deadliest of my minions," said Daggoth. "They shall aid you in your search." "They shall be put to good use," Kerrigan assured him, and the zerg fell in with the others behind her all of a sudden a voice spoke in his head well Sara's head and it was Sara's voice Jim im so happy you have decide to join in this little conversation now now truly know hat the swarm is like and the power i hold i have felt you thought the link i share with you your are every thought is also my thought you have when your in the link or how you think in my head i wanted to show you what power i hold i can see it worked don't worry my darling we will be together now just watch and see. Daggoth retreated mentally, intent upon his own tasks, and Zasz had gone silent, leaving only Kerrigan and her new followers. "We must attack at once," she told the second cerebrate. It occurred to Raynor that this one had no name, and as soon as he thought it he knew why. Among the zerg, names were a matter of recognition, only given to those who had served the Overmind long and faithfully. Both Zasz and Daggoth had won that honor. This cerebrate was young and had not yet distinguished itself. Kerrigan, of course, was a special case, which might explain Zasz's resentment she had retained her original name and had been given another upon her rebirth. But she was still speaking to the cerebrate, and Raynor struggled to focus on her words. "Once I have"Sir?"It took Raynor a moment to separate himself from the last vestiges of the dream, to realize that he was not stalking through an underground chamber with a zerg brood anymore but lying upon the planet's surface. Cavez was leaning over him. "Sir, everyone is clear," the trooper reported. Raynor nodded and accepted the younger man's hand up, shaking his head both to disperse the ash that clung to his hair and rebreather and to clear the dream-traces from his mind. What had Kerrigan been about to say? he wondered.

Where was she attacking? Much as he hated the dreams it was torcher to be away from her, hated this last one particularly because it showed him how comfortable Kerrigan was in her new role, he wished Cavez had waited an instant longer to wake him. That lost information might prove immensely important. Too late to do anything about it now, however. Brushing the more stubborn bits of ash from his goggle lenses, he glanced around and took stock of their situation. Twenty-three soldiers. That was all he had left of the three hundred or so who had followed him down. And many of the survivors were wounded, some had weapons and plenty of ammo several of the more experienced troopers had been alert enough to scavenge clips from the bodies of their fallen friends. No food to speak of, of course; they hadn't planned to be down here that long. Everyone carried a canteen of water and a few emergency rations, but most of that had been consumed on the trek down, or given to the injured to give them strength for the return march. "Back to the shuttles," he announced finally, patting one soldier's shoulder where she sat, head between her raised knees, arms limp at her sides. "Let's go, trooper," he told her as gently as he could. "Plenty of time to rest when we're back off this rock." He gave her a hand up. That was it then, he admitted to himself as they gathered their gear, helped the injured to their feet, and began walking toward the shuttle beacons indicated on their comm units. The mission was over. He had failed. He'd come here to find Kerrigan, which he had, and to save her, which he couldn't. She didn't want to be saved and with a startiling thought he really didnt want to save her Sara had been so unhappy her entire life she hated humanity she saw there flaws she was happy and thats all he wanted fro her, and even if he'd had the means to undo whatever the zerg had done to her, he didn't have the manpower to take her from them. Hell, he wasn't sure Mengsk did, even with the Dominion at his beck and call.

The only thing he could do now was get the hell out of Dodge,wait for Sara to contact him and move on They were a long way from the shuttles, both because they'd walked a good distance before finding the chute down and because they'd wound up taking a different route back to the surface. Fortunately this part of Char was easy going, only a few low hills and shallow valleys, and they plotted a direct line back to the shuttles from their current location. Raynor led the way, with Cavez and Non right behind him, and the troopers settled into their pace quickly, falling into the lockstep rhythm of a forced march. Raynor matched it as well, and the steady beat and monotonous scenery soonlulled him into a half-sleep, leaving him still awake enough to walk but not really conscious. Apparently, that was enough to trigger the dreams again. He was on a ship now, and for a second he thought this was just a normal dream, or even a memory of something. Then a shadow moved in the corner of his vision and he saw a limb, long and sinewy, brush the corridor wall. The limb ended in a massive scythe of jagged bone, and he knew at once that he was back in Kerrigan's head. There were zerg beside her, and now he realized he could hear more of them behind, rustling and scraping and hissing as they moved down the steel-gray zerg were inside a ship somewhere. How? was his first thought. Zerg couldn't operate vessels—they traveled through some sort of organic space tunnel; one of Mengsk's men had tried to explain it to him once, but all he'd gotten was that they could open warps between worlds without using any tech. And, judging from most of the zerg he'd seen, they wouldn't have the manual dexterity to operate a Terran ship anyway. Normally the zerg left ships alone, targeting the people, or they sent their massive mutalisks and tiny, explosive scourge up to attack the vessels from the outside. How could they be in one now? And it was definitely a Terran ship. He recognized the standard plastic wall panels, the utilitarian gray carpet, the recessed lighting along the juncture between walls and ceiling. He'd spent far too much time on ships like this in the past year. And, it occurred to him, of course Kerrigan would be able to operate a ship. Which meant the zerg could now as well.

Why? was the second question that popped into his head. If they could travel in space unaided, why would the Swarm want a ship at all? What were they doing there? But then he remembered the last words he'd heard Kerrigan speak in his previous dream. "We must attack at once," she'd said. Did the attack have something to do with a Terran ship? And whose ship was it? His were in orbit, he knew, but so were Duke's. Despite a slight pang of guilt, he hoped it was one of Duke's ships she had invaded. Maybe, if he was really lucky, it was the Norad III herself. Let the old bastard deal with her face-to-face! As Kerrigan moved farther along the hall, however, Raynor noticed more details, and his heart sank. The blank, brushed metal walls, the dull carpet covering the floor, the recessed lighting, everything functional but not quite bare-bones military—this wasn't a warship. It definitely wasn't the Hyperion, but it wasn't the Norad III either, or one of the carriers. It could be one of his smaller ships, or Duke's science ship or cargo ship. Then a handful of people emerged from a door up ahead and Raynor knew he'd been right. These were civilians, techies and researchers. Regardless of whom they worked for, they were defenseless against the zerg now racing down the corridor toward them. One woman screamed as she looked up and spotted the aliens for the first time. She fell, her legs giving way from shock, and just lay there sobbing as they approached.A hydralisk made quick work of her, and the sobbing stopped abruptly. Another woman had backed away, clawing at the door she had just exited, so panicked she forgot how to use the door panel. A zerg speared her from behind, his claw passing through her chest and denting the door.

Then it shook its arm and her body was tossed aside, blood spraying the halls and everyone present. Several drops struck Kerrigan and she brushed them away with one hand, then absently licked her fingers wow shes cold but that's hot Jim thought oh Jim Sara cooed so glad you can join me now you can see me in action like you wanted enjoy. Two of the civilians, a man and a woman, had been near the back of the group and had not yet been attacked. The man saw Kerrigan's motion and gasped, his eyes traveling up and down her form and his skin paling as the sight registered fully. "She's infested!" he gasped. He threw an arm up in front of the woman, a ludicrous gesture given the zerg rapidly surrounding them. "Stay away from her!" he shouted, though whether it was a plea to the approaching aliens or a warning to the woman Raynor couldn't tell. "Call for help!" the woman cried, and hearing her shook the man from his daze. He punched a button on the door panel, the Emergency Call button, and blue lights began flashing all along the corridor.

A siren sounded as well, and now more people appeared in the hall from other doors and intersections, screaming and cursing as they saw the zerg. The man's heroism cost him his life, a zerg tearing his head from his shoulders, and the woman followed, her chest split in half and her organs torn free before the scream had died on her lips. Raynor was forced to watch, unable to wake up or turn away, as the zerg continued their march through the ship, slaughtering everyone in their path. A squad of armed soldiers appeared finally, still buckling on their armor, and Raynor was only a little cheered to notice the Terran Dominion insignia. Whatever Kerrigan was up to, she had invaded one of Duke's ships. "You'll never make it out of here alive, bitch!" one of the troopers shouted, firing his gauss rifle on full auto into the approaching brood. Several zerg were hit, and two fell with steel spikes through their throat and eyes. "See?" another trooper bellowed, laughing as he swung his weapon around to fire upon them. "They ain't so tough!" He let loose a barrage and more zerg died. "These critters bleed just like anybody else!" he shouted, and several of his comrades cheered. Kerrigan had not been hit, however. A chill raced up his spine as he saw why. One of the troopers aimed at her and fired, a cluster of iron spikes racing toward her. She raised one hand and the spikes simply stopped in midair, slamming to a quivering halt as if they'd run into a wall. A second gesture and the spikes spun about and leaped toward the trooper, punching him into a wall from the impact. The spikes pierced not only the man but the wall behind him, and his body was left hanging there as the rifle slipped from his dead hands. Kerrigan stalked forward, blocking and sometimes reversing the attacks aimed at her. Behind her zerg fell, but Raynor knew she didn't care. They were expendable. Only she mattered—her and her mission here. One of the troopers spotted her through the zerg swarming around and past her. "We got company!" he shouted, then gasped as he saw her more clearly.

He started to back away, and his eyes bulged as he stopped, frozen in place. Kerrigan held him there, paralyzed, as she stepped up behind him and rammed her finger-blades through his back, slicing his spine to ribbons. Before his body had toppled she was gone again, moving to the next man, her wings writhing with impatience, every barb angling toward her next target. A single glance fried that trooper's mind, and she was already looking for a third as he swayed and fell, blood leaking from his eyes and ears. It took mere seconds for Kerrigan to move through the opposition, and even from behind her eyes Raynor had trouble following her movements. He had always known, from the moment he first saw her, that she was fast and deadly. His experiences with her in the field had verified that, and Mike had told him about the incident on Antiga Prime, when she had dispatched an entire room of armed men with nothing but a knife and a was even faster now, however, and she no longer needed any weapons but the body the zerg had given her and the mind-powers she had always possessed but had been unwilling or unable to use. Men died quickly, too fast to scream, and then the corridor was clear of her foes again and the remaining brood members were climbing over the bodies. "This way," Kerrigan commanded, turning toward a stairwell, and the zerg followed her obediently. Several more people died, both civilians and soldiers, as she descended the narrow metal stairs—many of the zerg had been forced to wait above, unable to navigate the tight space, and judging by the sounds they were killing anyone who ventured too close. Kerrigan did not pause or deviate but headed to the very bottom and then down a long, narrow, unremarkable gray hall. She obviously knew where she was going. It was definitely a science vessel she was on, not a cargo ship—it was too small for cargo. But why would she go after a ship like this? Why not take out the Norad III instead? That was definitely the bigger threat."Here," she said finally, stopping at the heavy blastdoor at the far end. The keypad lock was much more complicated than any of the others on the ship, and Raynor realized that he had never seen this door before. Nor did he know what lay beyond it.

But Kerrigan clearly did. she didn't bother trying the lock. Instead she grasped the handle with one hand, plunged the fingers of her other into the thin seam between the door and the wall, braced herself with her feet wide apart, and twisted from the waist. The door groaned, shuddered, and tore loose, and she tossed it aside. The room beyond was dark and smelled of stale air, but small lights blinked somewhere within, and Kerrigan smiled. "Good," she said. "What I seek is within. Soon" Beep. "What the f—?" The beep woke Raynor from his walking slumber, as did the curse that followed. The sound had come from his comm unit, though he realized hazily that he had heard it echoed behind him as well. The curse had been from Non. Glancing at his wrist, he saw the screen still displaying the terrain grid he'd selected at the start of their march, their path traced along it and ending at— nothing. The dot that should have been there was gone. The dot that marked the location of the shuttle's beacon. "Sir," Cavez started, "we just" "I know, I know!" Raynor snapped, still staring at his screen. What had happened? Where was the beacon? For that matter, where were the beacons for the other shuttles, which had been displayed as well, but dimmed, to distinguish them from the Hyperion's? Glancing behind him, he saw everyone looking at their wrists, shaking them, pushing buttons.

Everyone's displays were the same, all equally blank. A quick check confirmed that the comm unit had just refreshed its information, as it did periodically. The beacons had shown clearly before, but when it scanned for them this time they were gone. Something had happened in between. Something to the shuttles. The troopers had covered most of the distance back already, and Raynor charged up the hill before him, glancing at his screen to confirm what he had already seen. The shuttles were just over this rise. Panting from the exertion, using his hands to wave away the ash that rose about him, he reached the top of the hill and stared down into the valley below. The valley where they had left the shuttles. The valley that was empty save several wide swathes where the ash had been scattered or burned away, dark rock and dull soil showing through. That and the bodies he saw crumpled here and there near those swathes. "No!" he shouted, barreling down the hill, rifle ready though he could already tell he wouldn't need it. Whatever had happened here was long over. The shuttles were gone.

**Authors note so i didn't go to my grandparents today but i still wont be around ill be around later tonight im going to be gone all day probably then be home tonight about 8 maybe 9 depending what time i get done with what im doing do i promised you guys a story today whether i was driving or home well i got tome so i made another one hope u enjoy. Ps did you guys like the way I did the parrigraph this time or back to the old I got a request to spread out when there talking so I did let me know**


	6. Chapter 6

"DEAD, SIR," SAID ONE TROOPER, THE YOUNG woman he had helped up before, moving away from the body she had been examining. "Zerg, looks like." "Same here," a second soldier confirmed, straightening up from another body. Raynor nodded. It was the same with the body he'd examined, a man named Sanchez who'd piloted the Hyperion's shuttle. Sanchez had been torn to shreds, and the damage certainly matched what Raynor had seen from the zerg hell, it matched what he'd witnessed just hours ago in the tunnels. The zerg had clearly been here. And they had killed all his shuttle pilots and taken his shuttles.

But why?The zerg had never needed shuttles before their overlords could move through space unaided. Why would they want his shuttles? His comm unit beeped again, registering an incoming signal, and Raynor accepted it and opened the channel, still glancing around, his mind still struggling with what had happened here. The voice that reached him quickly demanded his full attention, however. "Mayday, Mayday!" It was a woman's voice and didn't sound familiar. "Can anyone hear this?" He was about to reply when another voice cut in. "Roger that," it answered, and Raynor recognized Duke's gravelly snarl. "This is the Norad III. Go ahead." He was surprised to hear Duke answering a call personally, and decided to eavesdrop as long as he could. Perhaps he'd learn something useful. Like maybe what had happened to his shuttles. "Sir!" Raynor could hear the relief in her voice. "Sandler, sir, from the Amerigo. We're under attack, sir!" "Who's firing on you?" Duke demanded, and Raynor knew the general had assumed he was behind this. Which was fair—if their situations had been reversed he would have accused the vindictive little ass in a heartbeat.

"It's not an outside attack, sir," Sandler replied quickly. "It's an invasion. They're on the ship!" Raynor thought he could hear gunfire behind her, and screams. "Who's on the ship, Captain?" Duke demanded. "Who are you fighting?" "Zerg, sir," she said. "It's the zerg! They're here!" At first Raynor thought the last statement was meant just to reiterate the Amerigo's plight, but then he heard more gunfire, followed by a loud scream, a short hiss, and then silence. "Sandler? Sandler!" Duke shouted. There was no reply. Raynor checked his comm and saw that the linewas still open, the channel active. But no one responded. "Damn!" He turned to Cavez, about to say something, when his comm beeped again. It was a different call, and this time it was one of his own ships. "Sir, this is Warriton on the Chandler. We're being attacked by zerg, sir from inside the ship!" Another call followed right behind it. "Sir, Lieutenant Physon reporting from the Harper. We've been breached! The captain is down, and we're taking heavy casualties!" As a fourth caller, Ragay from Duke's carrier ship Trillium, called to report the same conditions, Raynor finally realized what had happened. The zerg had taken his shuttles, and probably any Duke had sent down as well, but not because they needed them for travel.

Travel wasn't the point. The shuttles gave them access to ships, which meant the zerg could get inside easily and then kill everyone onboard. Unlike Terran boarding parties, the zerg weren't worried about their own safety, or about keeping the ship intact—they would survive even if the ships crashed. Not that the Swarm cared about losing a few soldiers. It was the perfect way to bypass all defenses, especially since Kerrigan could steal the access codes from the shuttle pilots' minds before killing them. She'd invaded Duke's ships the same way, using his shuttles or more of Raynor's, and had probably reached out mentally to get the codes from someone on each ship as the shuttles were about to dock. Which meant the zerg were infiltrating each of his and Duke's ships right now. Including the Hyperion. But why is ships Sara and her were ally's Quickly he punched in the codes for his command ship. "Matt!" he shouted as soon as the channel opened. "Matt, can you read me?" "Sir?" Horner sounded the same as ever, and Raynor breathed a sigh of relief. His second wouldn't sound so calm if there were fighting taking place onboard. "Listen, Matt, there's not much time," he said quickly. "The zerg are about to attack. Get everyone ready. And get people to the lifeboats—you may need them. I want you to "What do you mean, sir?" Horner interrupted. "We haven't seen anything on the scopes except the shuttles returning. No sign of zerg at all. But we can talk about this in person when you get up here." "When I—?" Raynor closed his eyes. For once the dreams did not come. "Matt, where is my shuttle now?" "About to dock, sir." He could hear Horner's confusion. "But you know that already." "No, I don't," Raynor explained slowly. "I'm not on that shuttle. Listen to me, Matt. Lock down the shuttle. Seal the shuttle bay, lock it all down, don't let anyone in or out." "But sir, I—all right." Though he obviously didn't understand, Horner obeyed as always. Raynor heard the sound of typing, then a small "Hunh." "That's odd," Horner said finally.

"What? What's wrong?" "There's an override," Horner told him, still typing. "I can't lock it down. It's your code, sir. What's going on?"  
Raynor cursed, wishing there were something he could do. But there wasn't. He was trapped here on Char while the zerg swarmed through his ships, and now they were about to take the Hyperion as well. "Can you override the override?" he asked. "No sir," came the reply. "That would defeat the purpose." Despite the situation Horner chuckled at the thought, and the sound tore at Raynor. He was just a kid! "There's got to be some way to stop them!" he demanded. He pictured the Hyperion's layout and cursed Mengsk's ego. Those wide, impressive stairways didn't have any doors on them, no way to seal off the zerg would have free rein once they exited the shuttle bay. "Whatever you do, don't let that shuttle dock!" "Well," Horner started, then hesitated. Obviously he'd thought of something but didn't want to say what. He still sounded calm, a lot calmer than Raynor, though from the way his voice rose Raynor could tell the kid was scared. He had every right to be. "What, Matt? There's no time!" "I could perform an emergency warp-jump," Horner explained. Raynor understood at once. Pilots and navigators planned warp-jumps very carefully, often for hours beforehand.

That was because a single mistake could send a ship millions of light-years off course, turn it inside out, or worse. Plus the warp engines usually needed a few hours to warm up. Jumping without preparation or planning was sheer madness. "Do it," he said, pleased to realize he wasn't even shouting. "That's an order, Matt." "Yes sir." He could hear Matt typing furiously and knew he was entering the commands for the warp jump. Raynor keyed in his own personal code to override the safety measures that would normally stop the Hyperion from jumping so abruptly. That was all he could do. At last he heard a chime in the background, indicating the ship was ready to move. "Good luck, Matt," he whispered. "Same to you," Horner replied. "Jim." And then he was gone. Raynor felt a mild surge of relief. At least the Hyperion wouldn't be overrun. Even if they impacted a star, or warped through a black hole, it would be better than being killed by zerg aboard their own ship still he had no clue why did Sara knowing it was his ship send her zerg to attack it just made no sense she tells him she wants to be with him then tells him to get out of here then strands him here. Maybe she had a plan he needed to contact her soon figure out what the hell was going on. He just wished there were something he could do for his other ships.

The Hyperion was the only one that had powerful enough engines to tear open a warp that quickly. None of the others could move that fast, and with an emergency jump his command ship hadn't been able to take any of the others with her. They were stuck up there, dealing with the zerg, and he was stuck down here with no way to reach them. But there was one quickly keyed his comm unit to a different frequency. Almost immediately he got another voice."Who is this?" someone, a young man, demanded. "This is Jim Raynor," he replied. "Get me General Duke right now." Duke's voice came through a second later. "What the hell are you playin' at now, punk?" Raynor swallowed his irritation. There wasn't time. "Listen, Duke," he said desperately. "I know we don't like each other much but I need help." He ignored the general's laugh and plowed on. "My ships are overrun by zerg," he explained quickly. "And my shuttles were all stolen. I need you to send men to clean my ships out, or at least rescue my people. I know they're on your ships too, but you've got the firepower to deal with them. I don't." There was a pause. "Duke, do you hear me?" Raynor demanded. "They're killing everyone on my ships! Your soldiers are the only ones who can help them now. Please!" Another brief pause, and then Duke finally replied. He laughed. "You want me to save your people?" he said after his laughter subsided. "You thumb your nose at me, turn your back on Mengsk and the Dominion, steal our ships, make me look like a damn fool, and then you want me to help you? To rescue the same people who walked out on me at your say-so? Boy, you got  
some big brass ones, that's for sure, but not a lot for brains."

"Look, blame me if you want, that's fine," Raynor offered."Come down here and arrest me, I'll go quietly. You can try me, execute me, whatever. But don't blame my people for this. Don't kill them for my mistakes. Please, Duke, I'm begging you." "Well," Duke said slowly, "that you are. And that's a thought that'll keep me warm on many a cold winter night." He chuckled again before his voice turned to gravel. "But you dug this ditch, boy, and now you're lying in it. And all those deaths, they're on your head. Hope that helps you sleep at night." And with that he broke the connection. A moment later Raynor saw a dark shadow cross the sky, dwindling as it went, and he knew the Norad III had left Char and headed back to the Dominion, at least one of its ships trailing behind it. Duke had turned tail and fled. Raynor couldn't blame him for wanting to steer well clear of the zerg, especially after those same zerg had taken down at least one of his own ships from the inside, but he swore if he survived all this he'd hunt Duke down and make him pay for leaving his people to die up there. "What do we do now, sir?" Cavez asked him. Raynor shook his head. "I don't know," he admitted. He glanced skyward again, squinting to make out the shapes that were his ships hovering just beyond the atmosphere. He kept expecting to see them come crashing down, and told himself that at least there might be some survivors. He had thought it couldn't get any worse. Suddenly a blinding light lanced across the sky, forcing him to shield his eyes. The light struck one of his ships and enveloped it, creating a glow that was visible even amid the sun's rays. The ship was clearly lit, a nimbus playing about it, and then that aura collapsed inward and the ship crumpled like a paper ball. When the light faded the ship was gone, not even a trace left behind. "What?" Raynor gaped at the empty space. One of his ships had just been destroyed, completely obliterated. What could do something like that? But he knew the answer immediately: the protoss.

Scanning the sky, he saw one of their lovely, delicate looking ships hovering not far from his little fleet. Now he remembered Matt's telling him, just before he came planetside, that a protoss ship was about to exit warp in their immediate vicinity. Obviously this was that ship. But why had it destroyed one of his vessels? Again the answer came right away: because of the zerg. The protoss were fanatical about destroying all zerg and even all traces of their existence. And now the zerg were on his ships. So the protoss were going to destroy them there, and his people along with them. The beam burst forth a second time, illuminating, enveloping, and then obliterating another of his ships. Then it struck once more. Raynor's comm unit pinged again just as the third ship ceased to exist, and he glanced down hurriedly. Then he stared. A new dot had appeared on his screen, which had shifted from the local grid to a wider planetary one. The new dot was right beside one of his ships but was heading toward Char. A lifepod! Or perhaps one of the other shuttles! That meant survivors! His hopes were dashed, however, as the protoss fired again, this time on the escape vessel. All Raynor saw with his eyes was the beam itself as the new dot vanished from his comm unit. Other dots appeared, each originating from one of his ships and heading toward Char's surface. And each time the protoss shot it down. One of the shuttles must have evaded the beam, however, or at least avoided the full brunt of the weapon it wobbled on his tiny screen, clearly damaged but still descending in a long, loose spiral. Raynor quickly marshaled his troops.

"We got survivors!" he shouted, waving his rifle over his head. "Let's go, let's go!" The soldiers fell in behind him and began running toward the projected crash site. Meanwhile Raynor monitored communications in case anyone made it out alive, or one of his remaining ships managed to cleanse itself of zerg, or the protoss contacted him directly about a temporary cease-fire. Two other shuttles made it down to Char's atmosphere, taking damage from the protoss but not enough to disable them. But up above the protoss were destroying the rest of Raynor's ships. "Sir?" It was Leanda Bluth, captain of the Harrison. "Yes, Leanda?" She was short and rounded and had bobbed blond hair streaked with brown. She smoked cigars and drank some horrible homebrew of her own invention and cheated outrageously at poker. He liked her. "The zerg have overrun the ship, sir. Everything except the bridge, and they're at the doors now. I'm sorry, sir." "Don't be," Raynor told her gruffly. "You did a good job, Leanda. Thanks." "Yes, sir," she replied. "Good luck, sir." Then she deliberately closed the channel. A minute later, the protoss beam sliced into the Harrison. The ship was too large to be enveloped completely but the beam struck section after section, disintegrating whatever it touched. Raynor couldn't tell which areas had already been hit and which were being hit now. He did notice, however, when the Harrison went off-line. And he watched through the clouds of ash and smoke as, bit by bit, the ship was carved into nothingness. Finally the beam vanished, leaving nothing but a gap in the sky where his ship had been. The Harrison had been the last one. All of his ships were gone now, and all his people save those with him, the handful on the Hyperion if Matt had kept the ship intact, and whoever had survived in those downed escape pods. All those people who had followed him, believed in him, trusted him. All dead. Dead because of him. He shoved the thought from his mind, though he knew it would haunt him forever after. Time for that later. Right now he had survivors to find. They reached the closest of the three signals forty minutes later.

It was a shuttle rather than a lifepod, and they saw the smoke from its damaged engines and singed fuselage before they spotted the ship itself. The protoss beam had caught it a glancing blow, incinerating one wing and ruining most of the engines, but the pilot had managed to coast the damaged craft down in one piece. As Raynor and his men topped the rise they saw that the shuttle had its doors open and that several people were standing beside it. Despite their small numbers, the sight lifted his heart, and abandoning all caution, he ran toward them. "Sir!" One of the figures stepped forward, left arm cradled protectively against her body, head bare to let her long hair drift in the mild breeze, ash giving her a faint streak across the blond. "Lieutenant Abernathy, sir, from the Chandler." Other than the wounded arm, she looked unharmed. "Lieutenant, it's damn good to see you," Raynor told her. He did a quick head count. She had twenty three people with her, roughly half the shuttle's capacity. Four of them were civilians but the rest were soldiers, and fully armed. No one seemed to have suffered anything worse than cuts, scrapes, bruises, or broken limbs. "Sir, the Chandler," one of the soldiers started to ask. Raynor just shook his head. " We've got two other escape pods," he told them. "I need to round up whoever's in them." He beckoned Cavez over—he'd discovered during the return trek through the tunnels that the young trooper was smart, resourceful, and very reliable. "Cavez, Abernathy," he made the quick introductions. "Stay here, patch people up as necessary, and inventory anything we can use." He selected five troopers at random. "You, you, you, you, and you. Come with me." Then he was off and running again, heading for the second location. The five troopers kept up easily. Behind him he could hear Abernathy and Cavez organizing the shuttle and the remaining soldiers.

It would be as good a place as any to set up camp for the night. The second craft was also a shuttle, though more badly damaged—the protoss beam had sheared through its middle and the ship had broken in two upon entering the atmosphere. The beacon was in the front half and from a nearby hill they spotted the back half a valley away. Four soldiers, including the pilot, had survived in the front half. No one was alive in the rear section, though the pilot said he'd had almost the full forty packed inside it. Bodies were strewn between the two halves, and Raynor insisted that the soldiers with him gather the corpses and place all of them in the shuttle's front section, which they stripped of its supplies and other useful bits. One of the four survivors had a leg injury, and Raynor ordered her to stay with the others by the wreckage. Then he and the three healthier soldiers from that shuttle moved on to the third and final location. He would have liked to keep everyone together but knew that if anyonewas alive but injured, time might be of the essence. This one was a mere escape pod, barely large enough to house six people. It had apparently evaded the protoss beam entirely, or perhaps been too small to be noticed. Unfortunately whoever had piloted the pod was unskilled and had skimmed it off a nearby cliff, judging by the scrape across the rocks there and the matching furrow in the pod's underbelly. It lay on its side in a small crater, and Raynor suspected the crater's lip was all that had kept the pod from rolling farther. For a second Raynor hesitated. None of his ships had carried escape pods. This had come from one of Duke's ships, either the cargo ship or the science vessel. Which meant that anyone within it worked for the Terran Dominion, and might shoot him on sight.

He considered walking away, but couldn't bring himself to do it. Char wasn't that friendly a place, at least not what he'd seen of it so far. He couldn't leave any survivors to fend for themselves. Hell, he'd probably even have offered Duke a chance to join forces. Probably. Still, he loosened his pistol in its holster, just in case. "Hello?" Raynor called as he approached the pod. Its hatch was partially open, though it looked less like a deliberate action than a result of the damage it had sustained. "Anyone in there?" Listening closely, he thought he heard a faint reply. "We're coming in," he warned in case they were armed. The hatch was badly crumpled and it took all four of them to pry it open enough for entrance. Finally it yielded to their efforts and peeled back enough for Raynor to slip through. The pod's interior was a mess. Basic supplies were normally bolted to the walls or held in mesh pouches, but these had all come loose upon impact and were scattered everywhere. The pod had six harnesses, all spaced evenly around the walls, and two of them were empty. The other three held people, two men and a woman. One of the men was clearly dead, an emergency prybar embedded in his skull. The woman's head hung at a bad angle and as Raynor edged around he saw that her eyes were open and glazed. The other man had what looked like a shard from a structural support piercing his abdomen, but he groaned and shifted as Raynor's shadow fell across him. "Help . . . me," the man gasped, and Raynor looked around desperately for the pod's med-kit.

There! He scooped it up and moved to the injured man's side, then opened the kit and began rummaging through it. "I'll do what I can," he said bluntly. He could already tell from the amount of blood pooled at the man's feet that the wound was fatal. But he wasn't about to say that. Finding the painkillers, he injected the man with enough to numb him. "Which ship are you from?" he asked. He didn't recognize any of the people, who were clearly civilians rather than soldiers. "The Amerigo," the man said softly, his eyes already losing focus and his words slurring slightly as the painkillers did their work. "We got out when that . . . monster appeared. Had to . . . warn someone." "Monster? What do you mean?" Raynor leaned against the wall beside the man, his pulse quickening. He suspected the answer but needed to be certain. The Amerigo had been Duke's science vessel, he remembered. He'd heard its Mayday. "Not . . . zerg," the man explained, shaking his head and wincing from the motion. "Not one... I'd seen before . . . anyway. Like a woman . . . but one of them." Kerrigan! Raynor tried to keep his voice even, knowing he shouldn't excite the man too much but determined to find out as much as he could.

"She was on the Amerigo, this zerg woman?" The man nodded, the painkillers now apparently in full force, because the movement didn't seem to bother him. "What was she doing there?" His dream, or vision, of her had been real! And she'd been on the Amerigo. Which meant that strange door on the bottom level had been there as well. "Searching... the files," the man replied. "Old . . . logs." "Old logs?" Raynor frowned. "She was there for old travel data?" Again the man shook his head. "No, not travel." He smiled grimly. " Doesn't . . . matter . . . now. No . . . secrets . . . left." He took a deep breath before continuing. Raynor tried to ignore the bubbling sound that made, or the froth that appeared at the man's lips. He knew this questioning wasn't helping the man any, but the guy was already dead. And he needed to know why Kerrigan had attacked. "Amerigo . . . was a Terran science vessel," the man explained. "Every science vessel... had the same secure room on the bottom level. Files. Ghost Program." Raynor felt the chill grip him. "Amerigo was part of the Ghost Program?" The other man shook his head. "No. We just . . . carried . . . the files. Every science vessel did . . . in case Ghost . . . operatives needed help or . . . repair." By the way he said "repair," Raynor could tell he didn't mean first aid, and he remembered Kerrigan talking bitterly about the training she'd received as a Ghost, and the conditioning they'd forced upon her. "She wanted the files," he muttered. "That's why she attacked." "Won't . . . do her . . . any good," the man managed, the words creating pink bubbles around his mouth and his eyes dimming. "All . . . encrypted." He coughed up the last word, along with blood, and gasped, his eyes opening wide. Then a rattle emerged from his throat and the man went limp. Raynor climbed back out of the pod, barely aware of his actions. He told the soldiers to gather anything they could use and then stood off to one side, waiting as they searched the tiny vessel. He was too busy thinking about what he'd just learned, and what it meant. Kerrigan had been a Ghost, a telepathic assassin forthe Confederacy. She and the others had been heavily conditioned, with strong psychological and chemical blocks to keep them from misusing their abilities. She'd told him once that Mengsk had rescued her from all that and helped remove many of those blocks. That's why she'd been so loyal to him. But some of those blocks had remained.

Despite what he'd seen her do, Kerrigan had not had access to her full potential. And those files contained the key to unlocking them. If a Ghost's conditioning weakened, the files would instruct the scientists on how to reinstate them. But that meant they could also be used to remove the blocks by working backward. Now Kerrigan had those files. No wonder she'd targeted the Amerigo personally—as a former Ghost she knew what it would contain. And she'd used those memories, and her skills, to gain access to that room. He had no doubt she'd managed to decrypt the files, probably pulling the necessary codes from one of the scientists who hadn't made it out in time. Now she would be able to unlock her own mind, destroy any lingering conditioning, and rid herself of those restraints. Her full power would be unleashed. Raynor shuddered. What had the zerg just unleashed upon them all? what would this mean for Him and Sara?


	7. Chapter 7

Sorry I haven't written ive been wanting to but I have been busy and I kept putting it off hope u guys like the story I should be writing more I got like 16 days left of school so im almost done please review don't flame to hard. I have mainly been reading other peoples story's. I love the way people can change the way Sara is as the queen although this is I think going to be interesting to because of the book but we will see thanks guys.

BY THE TIME RAYNOR LEFT THE LIFEPOD AND ITS dead trio behind, collected the other survivors from the second shuttle, and brought everyone he'd found alive back to the first, Cavez and Abernathy had put everything there in order and set up a base camp. They'd erected several large tents to house most of the men, flanked by smaller tents to handle the runoff. Operations and mess were set up within the shuttle itself, making use of its power cells. "We total fifty-two, sir," Cavez reported as Raynor dropped onto the shuttle's surviving wing, using it as a makeshift seat. "We have enough rations to last us two weeks, more if we can find something to supplement them." He tactfully didn't mention that they'd seen nothing living on Char but zerg, and Raynor didn't think they'd get hungry enough to try eating the disgusting aliens."Plenty of weapons," Cavez continued, "and a decent supply of ammo." He grinned. "We've even got powered armor, twenty-four suits in all a few took damage from the shuttle crashes but we can probably cobble them back together, or use them for parts." Abernathy took over. "We're okay where we are," she confirmed. "No extra atmospheric communication, though. We've got the comm units patched through the shuttle, so we can maintain links among ourselves, but it doesn't have enough power to breach atmosphere." She shrugged. "The shuttle does have an emergency beacon, and I've activated it it's self-contained and can run continuously for up to three years." None of them commented on the notion that they could be trapped here that long, though Raynor wasn't really worried about it. Hell, between starvation and the zerg he could probably arrange to die sooner and save himself the awkward waiting.

Of course, someone might pick up the distress call and come rescue them. Even though they were on the far side of the galaxy, and the only people who knew they had come out this way were now dead as well, or hated their guts. Still, stranger things had happened. "Good work," Raynor told the two troopers. "Set some guys to stand watch and tell the rest to get some sleep. We'll sort out what to do in the morning." He lay back on the wing and was asleep within seconds. Their situation didn't look any better the next morning. Everyone had needed the sleep—they had all gone through a rough time the previous day, whether they'd been underground or up in spaceand so in that regard they were better. But all those recent events, so catastrophic and so sudden, seemed surreal, and yesterday everyone had moved in a daze. Now, waking up to Char's cold little sun and the layer of ash that coated their tents (someone had erected a small tent over the wing while Raynor slept, for which he was grateful—it wouldn't have looked good if he'd suffocated in his sleep), it was difficult to deny the reality. They were really stranded here. "We can repair the shuttle," one of the troopers, Deslan, suggested. They were all gathered around a fire Abernathy had built on the far side of the shuttle, using its bulk to shield the flames. Despite the constant volcanic activity it was cold, though Raynor knew it would warm up and become almost stifling later when the sun's rays and the constant flames and steam had mingled to cook the surface.

"With what?" Raynor asked, sipping from his cup and grimacing. Instant self-heating, self rehydrating coffee did its job, forcing enough caffeine down your throat that you were awake and alert for hours even if you normally suffered from narcolepsy, but it tasted like moldy cardboard reduced to liquid and heated to somewhere between a boil and the center of the sun. He took another sip. "We don't have any spare parts," he pointed out. "Sure, we can scavenge a bit from the other shuttle and the lifepod, but what we need is an intact engine. Neither of them has one." "Even if we did have the parts," Abernathy added, "we'd need the tools and facilities to effect repairs. That means a full ship's cradle, a crane, a few arcwelders, and several other things we don't have." "And what if we did get the shuttle working again?" Raynor asked them. "It's only good for short hops, you know that. The nearest inhabitable planet it" He frowned, trying to remember what he'd seen on the charts coming in.

"three days' travel," Non supplied. He shrugged, looking slightly embarrassed when several other troopers glanced at him. "I like to know where we are," he admitted. "The protoss are still in orbit," a man named McMurty pointed out. "We could repair our communications system and contact them, ask them for help." Raynor laughed. "And you think they'd say, 'Sure, want a lift home?' Not bloody likely. Protoss only care about one thing, and that's killing zerg. Either they'd ignore us or they'd kill us in case we'd been infected or Raynor thought kill me because of the deal I made with Sara. He didn't bother to explain that the protoss had been the ones destroying their ships. The soldiers from the Chandler and the Graceful Wing, former home of that second shuttle, didn't know anything about that part of yesterday's disaster. Raynor had considered telling them but had decided it wouldn't do any good. They didn't need to know that humanity apparently had a second enemy to worry about, the very aliens who had seemed to be allies so recently. Perhaps it was all a misunderstanding, and if so that might come out later, in which case telling the others what had happened would only make it harder to overlook.

But if it had been a deliberate act against them, it was one more complication, and telling these soldiers who had really destroyed their homes and their friends would only make matters worse. "So what are we going to do?" Abernathy asked. Everyone else quieted to hear Raynor's answer. "Well," he said slowly, "I reckon we're stuck on this rock for a while. Weeks, most likely. Could be longer than that, months or even years. We need to make preparations in case that's true." He glanced around. "We need to explore this planet thoroughly, make sure there aren't any dangers besides the ones we already know. Keep your eyes open for traces of animals, plants anything at all. If we're lucky we'll find a new source of food so we can save the rations for emergencies. Clean water would be nice too." He drained his cup. "Watch out for zerg. We know a lot of them were here and belowground. They might still be there, and we could walk right past a tunnel entrance before realizing it was there." He didn't say anything about Kerrigan again; his team didn't need to know about it yet most of all they didn't need to know there his relationship with her. Bad enough the planet was infested with zerg; if they ever found out these zerg were led by a woman, a Ghost turned zerg assassin, and it would almost certainly create a panic. Raynor needed everyone to stay sharp and keep hoping, and he wasn't going to tell them anything that might distract them from that. "We'll start local," he announced, setting his cup on the ground, standing up, and stretching.

"Grid out our surroundings, say a distance of ten miles. Cover it care fully, in teams, like we did yesterday. Look for tracks, tunnels, streams, anything at all. We're watching for two things, mainly—dangers and useful items." He gestured to Cavez and Abernathy. "You two are my lieutenants now." Both nodded, and Cavez puffed up his chest unconsciously, pleased at the fieldpromotion. "Each of you takes half this sorry lot," he said, hitching a thumb at the other soldiers, earning a few chuckles. "Assign sergeants if you want, that's up to you. Set a detail to keep this place while the rest of us search." He thought about it. "Might want to send a few back to the other shuttle, too—we cleaned out what we could but there might be some stuff we missed." "Yes sir!" Both of them saluted, and he nodded and moved away, leaning against the nose of the shuttle while they selected their teams—he knew from bitter experience that the worst thing you could do to subordinates was stand over their shoulders while they talked to their own subordinates. He needed these troopers to accept Cavez's and Abernathy's orders even when he wasn't around, and to realize that he trusted them to make their own decisions. That meant staying out of their way.

The two had been good choices, and in less than an hour people were assigned, equipped, and on the move. Cavez had put Non in powered armor and set him and five others to watch the camp—he'd deliberately chosen the five most wounded troopers, and Raynor admired the logic of giving them an important task that didn't require them to move around at all. He and Abernathy had then split the grid in half, Cavez taking one side and Abernathy the other. They'd given each squad a region to cover, and within those squads the sergeants set men to handle specific quadrants. It was all very organized. Raynor had slipped through the cracks, however—he wasn't in either unit so he hadn't been assigned a coordinate or a partner. Perhaps his lieutenants had assumed he would stay by the shuttle, but he was too restless to sit still. Instead he began walking aimlessly, not paying attention to his direction. Whenever he passed within sight of troopers he nodded, making it look like he was simply inspecting their progress, but in reality he was just moving to keep himself from thinking too much about their predicament. As he walked, barely registering where he was going or his surroundings, Raynor let his mind wander as well. Not surprisingly, it went straight to Kerrigan.

Instead of another dream, however, he flashed back to the first time they'd met. It had been on Antiga Prime. He and his men had just landed there, with orders from Mengsk to take out the Alpha squadron guarding the colony's main road. Mike Liberty had gone with them to help rouse the people to rebellion, and they were conferring when she appeared. She had seemed to appear out of nowhere they had been dropped off on a low plateau and there was no cover anywhere, just flat rock and a strong wind. Yet one second they had been alone and the next a woman was standing beside them. And what a woman! Kerrigan had been wearing her Ghost armor at the time, the gleaming, form-fitting suit accentuating her curves. Her long red hair had floated about her like an open flame. And Raynor had felt himself drawn to that flame like the proverbial moth. Her features were not beautiful they were too strong for that. Her eyes were too sharp and too vividly green, her mouth too wide and full, her nose too long. Her cheekbones and jaw were strong, proud, and unrelenting. Yet she was striking, all those features combining to create a face that fit her perfectly proud and strong and utterly captivating in short she was perfect. He had wondered what it would be like to kiss those lips, and what her body was like beneath that armor. And she had heard him. She had just begun reporting on scouting when her eyes widened and she took a quick step back.

"You pig!" she'd shouted at him. "What?" he'd protested, though he knew the reason for her outburst and could feel his face turning red. He'd assumed she'd simply caught him staring. "I haven't even said anything to you yet!" he'd defended himself lamely. She'd sneered at him then. "Yeah, but you were thinking it," she'd snapped, and his embarrassment had turned to anger. She was a telepath! He'd glared at Mike, who'd looked guiltily away, confirming his suspicions, the reporter had known! And hadn't told him! Not that telling him would have changed anything he still would have reacted to Kerrigan the same way. But maybe he could have masked it somehow if he'd known she might read his mind. That had been the start of their relationship, such as it was. He'd been attracted to her, definitely, but her being a telepath had cooled his lust considerably. He'd seen too many things, heard too many stories, and thinking about telepaths brought his own personal ghosts back to him all too clearly, Johnny and Liddy looming before him in mute testimony of the damage being gifted could do to ordinary people. He'd been short with Kerrigan for a while as a result, and had been surprised when Mike had stood up for her and told him to back off. He'd come to like the lanky reporter, and to trust his instincts, and Mike's obvious high opinion of her had probably been the start of his conversion.

Plus, the more he saw of Kerrigan the more she impressed him, not just physically but mentally. She was a tough cookie, that was for sure, but she was also assertive and independent and brutally honest. Kind of like him. He'd been particularly amused when she'd flat-out told Mengsk he was crazy, after the terrorist leader had ordered them to rescue General Duke from the downed Norad II. And look what had come of that. Still, the Raynor's reverie was interrupted by a shadow. It fell across him, lengthening until it covered not just his own shadow but his immediate surroundings, and he heard a strange, almost musical hum in the air. Not wasting the time to look up, he dove to the side, rolling as he hit the ground, one hand going to his pistol. Finally he came to a stop, slamming up against a small spur that was probably a steam vent, and drew his gun, brushing away the ash he'd acquired in his roll and squinting toward the source of the shadow. What he saw took his breath away.

He had seen protoss ships before, over Mar Sara and Tarsonis. But never in person. And never close enough to reach out and touch. His first thought was that it was less a ship than a sculpture, and a beautiful one at that, all golden swirls and loops and stylized barbs. Next he thought of a moth or a butterfly, with long graceful wings hovering above a short, stubby body but he quickly corrected that thought, because this was more like a hornet than a moth, its wings more angled, its body segmented and streamlined. Everything about it spoke of style and grace and speed. The hum he'd heard must have been its engines, he thought as the ship settled lightly to the ground mere feet from him, lightning playing about it and concentrated at the rear and along the base and the wings. Then the lightning dwindled, becoming infrequent flashes of light rather than a continuous arcing display, and the hum faded. The ship was powering down. Raynor righted himself, wincing at the bruise his backside had taken from that spur, and clambered to his feet, pistol still in his hand. As he watched, a sweep of the ship unfurled, swinging out and down, revealing an oblong portal along one side and creating a gentle slope from that point to the ground. The portal irised open and a figure appeared, silhouetted against the glow from within the ship. Then the figure stalked slowly down the walkway, followed by another, and another. The protoss had landed.

The first dozen to disembark were clearly warriors, wearing something that Raynor guessed was combat armor but which resembled his own armor the same way a classic painting resembled a crude sketch. The protoss were towering figures, easily seven feet tall, and in their armor they resembled great deadly insects, their bodies protected by shiny segmented shells whose pieces overlapped perfectly but slid about easily, allowing both flexibility and protection. Portions of the armor swept up from the chest, high over the flared shoulder-pieces and down to the back, resembling stylized wings. A gleaming light was embedded at the center of their chest, just below those arcs, and Raynor couldn't tell if the light was functional, decorative, or both. The protoss wore no helmets, their armor ending in a high collar that protected the neck alongside and in back but left the throat bare for full movement, and their long, peaked heads peered out from the welter of protective metal, glowing yellow orbs staring out from an almost featureless expanse of tough gray hide. They had no mouths and no noses, and Raynor wondered idly how they breathed or talked. He didn't see any rifles or blasters, but each warrior's forearms were covered in unusually thick bracers, the armor flaring out over the wrist instead of sloping back from the hand.

On the back of each bracer was a raised unit topped with a glowing dome, and he suspected they had integral blasters there. The warriors spread out in a semicircle around the gang plank, and then a final figure appeared at the portal and began his descent. If the others were soldiers this was definitely their commander. His armor was at once more spare and more elaborate than theirs, the bracers smaller and more elegant and lacking the bulge Raynor took for weaponry, the shoulder-pieces wider, the breastplate replaced with a heavy collar, a pair of thick crisscrossed straps with a gleaming gem set where they intersected, and a wide segmented belt. The pieces gleamed platinum rather than bronze and were suffused with a faint golden glow.

Over his shoulders and around his waist he wore long strips of fabric that created the sense of a loose open robe and a symbolic loincloth. They were made from some shimmering fabric, dark blue but with highlights that shifted from blue to gold to green as it caught the light. The commander's eyes glowed blue, a vivid blue like a strong flame, and Raynor found his own eyes turning again and again to that electric gaze. As the leader reached the ground and his armored boots settled into the ash, barely raising a puff of white, Raynor recognized him. He had seen this protoss once before, on the screens of the Hyperion. They had been on Antiga Prime and the protoss had acknowledged their presence before descending to cleanse the planet. This was the Executor Tassadar, the High Templar, one of the protoss high commanders. Knowing his name and knowing they had met before, even at a distance, made everything worse. This same alien, the very one who had destroyed his ships and killed his people mere days ago, had called those people allies only a few months before! Raynor's rage bubbled up within him and he had a sudden urge to charge forward and confront the protoss Executor. His legs refused to cooperate, however. He had seen the protoss leader before, it was true. And he had spotted protoss what they called Zealots, warriors—on Tarsonis as well. But only from a distance, and only in the heat of battle. He'd been busy then, distracted, unable to fully register their presence. He had no such blinders now, and staring at the tall, proud, graceful aliens arrayed before him, Raynor felt something he wasn't sure he'd really experienced before. Awe. The zerg were horrifying, terrible, enough to make even the bravest man quake with fear. But this was different.

It was more than that, and less at the same time. He wasn't afraid of the protoss, or at least that wasn't all of it. He was afraid, but only because they were so much more than him. Raynor had learned confidence the hard way, by being forced to rely on himself and his own abilities to stay alive. He knew he was a capable fighter, a good tracker, a decent commander. He knew he could take most men in a fair fight. But facing these aliens he felt like a little boy again, clinging to his mother's skirts. For the first time he understood, really understood deep in his bones, that these were aliens, beings from another planet, another race, another culture. And that they were ancient compared to him. Humanity was a mere child beside the protoss, and not a particularly promising one at that. As he stood there, fighting the desire to run away or duck and hide, Raynor saw the Executor's head swivel about, those glowing blue eyes searching for something. Then their gaze settled upon him, and he knew how a moth felt when it was pinned to a display by razor-sharp pins. Tassadar's gaze pierced him, rooting him to the ground, and baring his very soul. "Come." That was all the Executor said, but the word resounded through Raynor's head despite the distance between them. They don't talk, he realized out loud.

The protoss spoke mind-to-mind instead, and just now their commander had spoken to him. His voice was deep and soft and rolled over Raynor. If the sounded like metal grating upon itself, or insects buzzing in rage, the protoss sounded like ocean waves or the rumble of thunder in the distance. Raynor felt his right foot lift off the ground and his body shift forward to complete the step. The left followed. He had no control over his limbs, but obeyed the protoss's command like a sleepwalker, trapped within his own flesh. The protoss warriors stepped aside without a sound and he continued forward until he was inches from the Executor, staring up at him.

Behind them the portal slid shut and the walkway coiled back upward, sealing the ship, but Raynor didn't care. His attention was locked on the towering, captivating figure standing before him. Those blue eyes had never left him, maintaining their intense gaze, and now the Executor tipped his head to one side to better consider this strange guest."James Raynor," the protoss acknowledged. "You were allied with Arcturus Mengsk during our prior encounters." Tassadar's eyes narrowed slightly. "You are no longer an associate of his?" Raynor remembered, then, one of the other reasons he had walked out on Mengsk. On Tarsonis the protoss had landed ground forces, warriors much like these, and had fought the zerg hand-to-hand. And between them and the Terran forces they had been winning. The zerg were being driven back. But that wasn't what Mengsk wanted. He wanted the Confederacy's Capital World to fall so that he could sweep in and create a new order, his Terran Dominion. The protoss were jeopardizing that plan, risking his revenge and his ambition. He couldn't allow that. So he'd ordered his men to attack the protoss. Raynor had refused. The protoss were their allies against the zerg! Raynor wasn't going to fight them, especially when the protoss had never attacked them directly. They had targeted Terran colonies only after the zerg had already corrupted them. "No," he managed, dragging the word from deep within. The Executor's brow lifted slightly, and suddenly Raynor found he could move again. His words came more freely. "I don't work for him anymore," Raynor admitted. "I left after Tarsonis, after he turned on you. That wasn't right." The Executor nodded, a mere dip of his long,tapered chin, but to Raynor it felt like a benediction, and a great weight lifted from his shoulders. He hadn't even realized how bad he had felt about that betrayal all these months, on the guilty thought that somehow he should have stopped it.

"You feel anger, and loss," the protoss leader commented then, and the sudden remark drove Raynor's mind back to the rage he had felt so recently. Rage directed at Tassadar himself. This time the protoss had turned on him, destroying his ships! He couldn't bring himself to voice the accusations, but apparently that wasn't necessary. The Executor heard them anyway, and looked away as if embarrassed. "The Terran ships orbiting this world were yours?" Raynor nodded angrily, and Tassadar nodded in return, still not meeting his eyes. "Yes, they were destroyed by our hand," he confirmed. Raynor couldn't hear a single trace of guilt in the alien's voice. "Those were my people up there!" he meant to shout, but the words come out in a whisper instead. "You killed them." "Their deaths were caused by the zerg," Tassadar countered, his gaze swiveling toward Raynor again."Your ships had become infested by the Swarm. We were forced to take action." His mental voice was calm, patient, that of a parent soothing an upset child. Raynor resented being patronized, but couldn't shake the sense that, for once, perhaps it was deserved.

"The zerg invaded, yeah," he agreed. "But my people were fighting them! We could have rescued them! Instead you killed them all, and stranded us here!" Tassadar stared down at him, those glowing blue orbs not angry but understanding, their light bathing Raynor in a sense of profound compassion. He knew that the Executor understood his frustration, his grief, and that he sympathized with him, and somehow that sympathy eased his pain. "Such was not our intent," the Executor told Raynor gently. "Yet your ships were lost to you. The zerg had overrun them. We detected little human life left on those vessels." His eyes narrowed, though not at Raynor. "Better it is to die a clean death, a warrior's death, than to become one with the zerg, as your people would have had they been allowed to continue." Raynor shuddered, thinking of Kerrigan. Could they have done that to his remaining crew? Yes, that was the zerg way they absorbed their fallen foes into the Swarm. So perhaps the protoss had saved his people from a fate worse than death but what happened yes she was zerg but she was still Sara he had made a deal with her he didn't what was going to happen with it there was no way to know but all he could do was hope he could be together he had lost so much already."But you didn't have to destroy the ships," he managed, though much of his anger had faded in the face of the Executor's logic. "Now we're stuck on this rock."Tassadar nodded. "Such was not our intent," he said again.

Then, apparently judging the conversation over, he turned to his warriors, who had waited unmoving during the discussion. "Seek out the Queen of Blades," he instructed them. "You know about Kerrigan?" Raynor was amazed. "Her screams echoed across the void," the Executor replied, "the clarion of a new terror birthed upon the cosmos." Raynor thought he heard a hint of awe and perhaps even fear in the alien's voice. "Her mind is powerful, even now, and the danger she presents cannot be overestimated." He glanced at Raynor again. "I must ascertain her strength." His voice hardened somehow, the thunder behind it increasing. "She shall not threaten my people while I stand." With that he turned back to his warriors. "Seek her out," he repeated, "and her forces. Do not oppose them directly, however. Merely find her and instruct me as to her location." Raynor was surprised that he could "hear," much less understand, Tassader's order, and realized a second later that the Executor had deliberately included him. In fact, the protoss leader had apparently done more than that, and Raynor found he could understand the protoss mental language as if he had been born to it maybe he could still help Sara but he had to find the right time. Right now, however, his mind was on something else. "You're not going to fight her?" he demanded, his surprise overwhelming his hesitance to speak so abruptly to the towering alien. "You just said she's a threat a terror!" And, thinking back on what he'd seen her do since her transformation, and what he'd learned from that dying scientist, he had to agree. "She poses a significant danger," Tassadar confirmed. "I must watch her carefully, that I might understand her capabilities." "I can tell you her capabilities," Raynor muttered. "She's Hell unleashed."


	8. Chapter 8

**Authors note so this chapter is going to end really gooy. But I don't give a fluck sorry for cussing lol I needed to get this out and ive been waiting for this scene for EVER I needed to say it and for anyone who doesn't know yes I am using queen of blades the novel. Im copying and pasting and adding some parts I feel are appropriate for my story. Now be aware i am not going to do the entire story like this. I have plans for the story that in my mind will change the StarCraft universe and lead to sequels that I will fully write and there will be no copying and pasting involved right now im trying to find a good point in the story were I can break off and it will make scene for the story im simply building a house so to speak im using someone else's base then building my walls and frames off of there base got a problem don't read if u want to ask feel free. sorry for the rant guys now onto the story.**

THE PROTOSS SCATTERED, EACH MOVING OFF IN a different direction. Tassadar, however, waited by his ship, standing as still as a statue. Though Raynor was right in front of the alien, he could tell the Executor no longer registered his presence. One part of Raynor hoped the protoss got their asses kicked by Kerrigan and her brood. It would serve them right, the arrogant bastards. But that was only a small portion of his mind, the jealous, illogical part he tried to keep locked away. The rest of him knew it was in his own best interests for Tassadar to find and destroy Kerrigan once and for all but he couldn't and he wouldn't not when he felt he was so close to her and being happy. Meanwhile, he had another concern.

The protoss were wandering around Char, and so were his own people. He didn't want them mixing it up, especially when the protoss might still be their allies. Tassadar's explanation had made sense to him and he was no Longer angry at the Executor for destroying his ships. Upset about the loss of them and his people, sure, and still mad, but now he was just mad at the zerg for forcing such a drastic response at the same time trying to come to terms with what he has done and what he might do in the future. In the protoss's place he would have done the same thing, and he knew it, especially since the Executor had told him there were few signs of human life left on the ships, and the alien had no reason to lie to him. Walking away from the protoss ship and resisting the urge to glance back repeatedly to make sure the towering Templar wasn't sneaking up behind him, Raynor topped a small rise. He hadn't realized he'd walked quite so far, but from here he could see the second shuttle, and that gave him an idea of their camp's location. Quickly he raised his comm unit and set it to broadcast on the all-purpose frequency Cavez and Abernathy had selected. "All units," he said into the comm, "all units, this is Raynor. The protoss have landed on Char. I repeat, we've got protoss here on Char. They're wandering on foot but they're after zerg, not us. Don't shoot at them. Repeat, don't shoot at them!"

Almost immediately his comm chimed with an incoming signal. "This is Ling," one of Cavez's sergeants reported. "We just spotted one of them, maybe half a mile away. Look like walking ants! He saw us but kept moving." "Good," Raynor replied. "Leave 'em alone and they'll leave us alone." Several other troopers called in to report protoss sightings, but the protoss did not attack them and the two forces slid past each other without incident. McMurty, who had been over at the second shuttle, actually came out of the back half to find himself face to-face with one of the protoss warriors, but said that after they stared at each other for a minute the warrior simply nodded and moved around him. "Nearly wet myself," the trooper added, laughing at his own fear, "but he couldn't've cared less!" Raynor debated what to do next. His men were handling themselves fine and the scouting was continuing. Already one team reported a small stream and another had found a stagnant pond, which would be fine once they'd boiled the water or used detox pills from the shuttle's supply. Another team had discovered a cluster of large flat mushrooms around one crater and others were looking in similar places for more there was no guarantee they were edible but it was the first plant life they'd found and it was certainly worth experimenting. Deslan claimed he'd seen something small and rodentlike darting into a vent as he approached he hadn't been able to catch it, but if he hadn't been seeing things it meant there were at least small mammals here, and they could hunt them for meat. No one had found any sign of the zerg, however. Had the monsters vanished somehow? Raynor doubted that he knew they were capable of going off-planet without ships but assumed it would require massive energy. Something like that wouldn't be subtle and they'd have seen signs.

So would the protoss, and Tassadar was still doing his impression of a boulder. No, the zerg were here somewhere. Most likely back underground. Then Raynor remembered he had a way to check. Taking one last quick look at the motionless Templar, he sat down and closed his eyes. And nothing happened except that the world wentdark. Opening his eyes again, he frowned. Ever since they'd landed he'd had trouble keeping the visions away. But now that he wanted them they were gone?What gives? He tried again, squeezing his eyes tight and concentrating on then he saw her. But not Kerrigan as she was now, not the mesmerizing, terrifying Queen of Blades. No, the Sarah Kerrigan that appeared before him was the one he had known on Antiga Prime and several other planets since then, the same Kerrigan he'd talked to shortly before they'd all landed on Tarsonis during that last fateful mission. It was Kerrigan fully human. She wasn't wearing armor, a rarity for her. Instead she was decked out in worn cotton pants, a soft work shirt, high leather boots, and a dusty leather jacket. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, strands of it escaping to frame her face, and other than the long knife strapped provocatively to one thigh she was unarmed. And she was smiling. Not her usual smile, either, which spoke of pain and towering self-control. No, this was a look he'd seen on her face only a few times, when he or Mike had managed to startle her into laughter. It was an unfeigned smile of genuine pleasure, causing crinkles around her eyes and a faint dimple in one cheek. She was happy. Raynor forced his eyes open again, dispelling the image.

He leaned forward, arms across his legs, and took a deep breath, vaguely thankful for the rebreather that kept his lungs from filling with ash. He tried not to gulp air, knowing that would only make him feel worse, but he needed to slow his racing heart. What had that been? It wasn't a vision, a peek into Kerrigan's head as he'd been expecting. And it wasn't a memory he'd never seen her wearing those clothes before. Was it simply a dream? It was certainly Kerrigan the way he'd always hoped to see her, without her constant defensiveness. But he hadn't really been asleep and it had been far too vivid to have been just a daydream. Lifting his head, he glanced down the hill toward the protoss ship and leaped to his feet, waving his hands to block the inevitable flurry of ash. Tassadar was gone! Looking around, Raynor spotted the Executor stalking to the top of another hill nearby, heading away from him. Without stopping to think about it, he ran after the alien. Tassadar had long, quick strides, but he didn't seem to be in much of a hurry and Raynor closed the distance between them rapidly. He slowed when he was still about twenty feet away, then fell in behind the Executor. They must have spotted Kerrigan, he realized. Tassadar had told his warriors to inform him of her location. He must be going to confront her now. Raynor knew he had to go along. Not to lend support he suspected even the lesser protoss warriors were far more capable than he was at combat, and their race had years of experience against the zerg. No, he was going to watch. He wanted to see what happened when these two, Kerrigan and Tassadar, met face-to-face. It might tell him more about both of

them, about their strengths and weaknesses. And it promised to be a matchup he didn't want to miss. As they walked, Tassadar giving no indication that he had even noticed Raynor behind him, Raynor thought about the situation once more, and about hisoptions. The protoss had landed and had been if not friendly, at least not hostile. That was a good sign and took one weight off his mind he had only one enemy here on Char, not two. And the Executor had not intended to strand Raynor and his men on this the protoss actually consider helping them get off-planet, then? He'd thought the idea ridiculous when McMurty had suggested it, but now it didn't sound quite so preposterous. It would be worth asking, at least he knew now that the protoss wouldn't kill him for daring to speak to them, so he really didn't have anything to lose. He started to say something about it, then stopped.

Better to wait until after the upcoming encounter, he decided. Besides, the protoss might not be in any position to aid them once they'd met Kerrigan. He wondered if he could figure out how to operate their ship. Even if the protoss wouldn't give them a lift, their situation was looking up. They'd found some water and possibly some food, so survival here wouldn't be as awful as it might have been. And perhaps the protoss would at least carry a message for them, a distress call. Who would he send it to, though? They had left a handful of people behind before coming to Char perhaps they would be willing and able to bring a ship and pick them up. Or perhaps one of the worlds nearby could mount a rescue mission. There were only fifty of them a single small spaceship would be large enough to hold them all. He considered the notion of contacting Mengsk directly. Yes, the emperor had named him a criminal. Would he send someone here to arrest him? Raynor had offered that solution to Duke and the sadist had laughed and left him here. But Mengsk would see the political value of capturing and trying Raynor. It would make him look strong and capable, and show what happened to those who opposed him. He might even order Duke back here, and the general couldn't refuse a direct order. The notion tickled Raynor. Sure, it would mean his death, but Mengsk might be willing to pardon the rest of his team if they swore not to oppose him again. That was worth something. They had crossed several hills now, and walked through several small valleys. Raynor could feel an ache in his legs, and his feet were throbbing in his boots. He'd already drained what little water he'd had left in his canteen, and eaten the one ration he'd still had in his belt pouch, and his throat was dry, and his stomach was gnawing at him. But Tassadar showed no sign of weariness or discomfort and Raynor was forced to keep going as well.

Just how far were they going? Where was Kerrigan? More than an hour, later Tassadar stopped abruptly. Raynor stumbled to a halt behind him and collapsed on the ground, not caring if the Executor moved on without him. He had to rest! They were at the base of another hill, this one taller and steeper than most, and as Raynor studied it he realized the difference. The slope was not only steep but oddly textured, clearly rock but lumpy rather than smooth or faceted. The hill also curved around on both sides, and it was a more regular sweep than that of most mounds or protrusions. The final clue was a clump of mushrooms at the hill's base, not five feet from where Raynor had dropped. Each mushroom was easily a foot in diameter, with a wide flat head and a short stubby stalk, and they were brown and gray and speckled with white that matched the everpresent ash. This was no hill. It was a crater. One of the largest he'd seen so far. And judging from the way Tassadar was looking toward the upper lip, Kerrigan was inside it. It made sense, Raynor admitted as he leaned back. The zerg favored the underground, and a volcano would provide ready access from the surface world to the caverns beneath. He rested his head against the slope behind him and closed his eyes, just for a second and he was inside the volcano, standing on the shallow bowl-shaped floor, admiring the dark glassy sides that rose around them. The rest of his brood clustered around him, and his wing-tips fluttered in anticipation. He was inside Kerrigan's head again. And like her he was suddenly awash with excitement. "Do you feel that, Cerebrate?" he heard Kerrigan asking the massive zerg through its overlord, which hovered slightly behind her. "The protoss are here, on Char. . . ." She paused, and Raynor had an odd swooping sensation, as if he had been flung across the room or been caught up by a strong wind. He knew Kerrigan had used her telepathy; he had felt it through their connection.

"They have been here for some time," she announced, sampling the mental landscape as a dog would sample the air with its nose, tasting for scents and reading the information they carried. "Hiding," she finished gleefully. "We must destroy them," the cerebrate suggested, though it did so diffidently. Clearly it had learned from watching her confrontation with Zasz. That had been Kerrigan against a named cerebrate, one of the Overmind's elect, whereas it was still nameless and unimportant. It had to be careful to avoid inciting her wrath. "The protoss are our ancient foe," it pointed out. "Yes, yes," Kerrigan agreed impatiently, her wings clacking together. "We will destroy them, never fear. But first I want to know why they are here." She smiled. "And that is easy to discover, as they are waiting just over the rise." She took to the air, leaping up to the crater's lip, her wings spreading out behind her as if they could hold her aloft. From there she could see protoss ringing the crater, one of them possessing the golden glow that marked a full Templar. It was toward that figure that she jumped, landing lightly perhaps twenty feet from him and furling her wings around her like a barbed cloak Behind the Executor and farther down the slope she saw a figure hunched on the ground, this one not wearing the protoss's glittering armor but ash-smeared fatigues and a worn leather jacket. A rebreather covered his face, but she recognized him nonetheless, and her smile grew at the thought of such an audience. "Jim," she called softly, and Raynor heard her voice both in and out of his head. "Wake up." And his eyes leaped open. Kerrigan was standing before him, just as he'd seen in his vision. Her attention was fixed on the majestic protoss before her, but Raynor thought he saw her direct a quick glance his way and wink.

Then she was focused upon Tassadar again. "Protoss commander," she called to him, her voice ringing across the landscape and causing Raynor's teeth to ache from the echo. "It was folly of you to come here." She stood proud and tall, not caring that her zerg were still climbing the crater's inner walls and had not yet topped the rise. Nor did she seem to care that the other protoss warriors were moving in from either side of the hill, massing behind Tassadar and behind her. Instead her wings unfurled, sweeping out behind her like a cloak, and she lifted her chin. "For I am Kerrigan," she announced, "and" "I know of you well, o Queen of the Zerg," Tassadar replied, cutting her off, "for we have met before." He executed a stately bow, bending at the waist until his torso was almost parallel to the ground, though his eyes never left hers. "I am Tassadar of the Templar," he informed her, humbly omitting his full title, his words rolling across them and enveloping Raynor in a tide of deep echoing warmth. Kerrigan smiled slightly, though whether she was acknowledging his introduction or showing that she had felt his vocal effects Raynor had no idea.

"I remember your selfless exploits, defending humanity from the zerg," the Executor continued. "Unfortunate it is, to see that one who was once so honorable and full of life would succumb to the twisted wiles of the Overmind." To Raynor the alien sounded genuinely disappointed, as if Kerrigan had failed him personally and that failure was a great loss. Kerrigan did not appreciate the sentiment. "Do not presume to judge me, Templar," she snapped, her wings rearing up and back, their tips jabbing toward him. "You'll find my powers to be more than a match for yours." She smiled again, though this was the humorless smile of a predator. "In fact," she said softly, her words driving ash before her as if they were carried on a strong wind, "I sense that your vaunted power has diminished since last we met. . . ."Raynor wasn't sure what happened next. He saw Kerrigan leap forward, wings outstretched, claws extended, to swipe at Tassadar. But the Executor shifted to one side, sidestepping her attack. At the same time his forearms, now encased in a soft blue glow, rose and knocked her wings aside so that she slid past him without even grazing him. That was what Raynor saw. Or thought he saw. Because both Templar and zerg were fuzzy around the edges, as if viewed through thick glass.

Their bodies glowed faintly, his blue and hers a yellowish green, and they left strange afterimages as they moved. Raynor blinked and looked again. Tassadar and Kerrigan were still standing as before, and a part of him knew they had not moved at all. But he was sure the attack he'd witnessed had just happened. Now the Executor nodded slightly, as if acknowledging Kerrigan's statement. Or perhaps this was its response to her attack. "Mayhap, o Queen," he intoned. There was a trace of something in his voice, something that sounded suspiciously like humor. "Or," he continued, "is it only that I need not flaunt my power in such an infantile test of will?" As the words left his lips Tassadar did the last thing Raynor would have expected he ran. The Executor turned on his heel and did a graceful sideways leap, spinning down the hill in a smooth cartwheel motion and landing erect a good hundred feet from the base of the hill.

The other protoss had apparently responded to some silent command because during the exchange they had crept silently down the hill as well, and now they were all grouped around their High Templar leader. Without another word Tassadar turned and led his Zealots at a full run around the hill and into the higher mountains that loomed beyond. The protoss moved so quickly that Raynor barely had time to register their departure before they had vanished from view. Kerrigan watched them go, her wings twitching with rage. Her zerg had finally crested the lip and now surrounded her, though they kept a respectful distance from their enraged queen. Despite himself, Raynor couldn't help admiring her. She was magnificent. "Foolish Templar," Kerrigan whispered, her words carrying easily to Raynor on the still air. "Prepare your defenses! I will come for you soon." "Seek out the cowardly protoss," she instructed her brood. "Slaughter them all, but leave the High Templar, the so-called Executor, to me. Now go!" Her wings flared and the zerg fled, racing down the hillside and following the same path the protoss had taken. Only one overlord remained, fluttering slightly before her, and Raynor realized it was not one of hers. "Kerrigan," the overlord said, and Raynor recognized the voice as that of Zasz the cerebrate, "I sense something strange about this Templar.

Perhaps you should reconsider your attack." She turned on the overlord, her wings snapping up to pierce its side and then slicing down and back to carve it open. "For the last time, Zasz," she hissed as the dying zerg fell to the ground at her feet, spraying ichor everywhere, "you question my motives and authority at your own peril." "You dare threaten a cerebrate?" Zasz gasped, though his voice was fading as his emissary died. "You will be the doom of us all," he warned. Then the overlord shuddered and went still, the ichor that flowed from its wounds slowing to a trickle. "My doom," Kerrigan told the unhearing zerg, "is a thing not of your making, and far beyond your power." And with that she pulled her wings from from its side and stood there in thought then as quickly as she looked down she started walking. Tours him! And as he sat there watching her sway and move with confidence he had never seen from another human she reached him and held out her hand to pull him up.

He reached out and took her hand and for a moment he watched her. Going over her beautiful body, magnificent face and her eyes that carried the power to crush anything underneath it. Then she reached up and pulled off his rebreather and reached to his head with 3 fingers. Raynor heard it inside his head close your eyes she commanded and he did so not knowing if it would be the biggest mistake of his life now she continued breath slowly and he did anyway knowing he would breath the toxic air that would clump in his throat and cause him to gag but instead as he stood there in front of the women he loved slowly breathing in an out the air felt better not great by any means it was ash but tolerable. As he continued breathing it continued to get easier to breath and harder to gag. Within moments he found he could breathe completely fine and with that she took her hand off his head as he opened his eyes he saw what he had always wanted she was giving him the most loving look those eyes could give and as quickly as it happened she laid her head on his shoulder. Her dreadlocks brushing his face her wings folding behind her there an act of good faith she muttered. Thank you Sara he whispered she didn't respond she didn't need to she continued to nuzzle her head against his shoulder finally after what seemed like an eternity she looked up ad said that rebreather was annoying. Why he asked he genuinely didn't get it because I couldn't see the beautiful man underneath it. Wow Raynor thought she's never said anything like that before. Well this is new Raynor thought. I know a voice responded and with that he looked back at Sara and saw a mischievous twinkle in her glowing eyes. And with that he couldn't help but smile Jim stared at her for a moment and searched her face for anything that could prove her statement to be false but he found nothing and with that he new the time had come for him to tell her. Sara he started as he looked into her eyes he felt he was staring into her very soul and she was doing the same thing.

I love you he said as confident as he felt the confidence radiated around every sentence I have loved u since the day we met I was always love you no mater what you do or will do or have done. No mater what you will become what you have become or was before I love you he finished and with that she said nothing else she simply leaned to his ear and whispered you will know when its time for us to be I am making progress my king and the time will be soon then she did something that sent chills down his spine she brushed his ear lobe with her lip and teeth and licked his ear and whispered and when the time comes we will go after Mengsk and we will make him SUFFER for what hes done don't worry darling and with that she stepped away and turned heel and walked away. Jim away from her touch already felt hollow to the core without her and as she walked toured were the protoss had fled he couldn't help be watch as she strutted away and let his thoughts wander as the first dirty thought entered his mind she whipped her head around and had a mad grin on her face from the memory of there first meeting you pig! her voiced echoed. What? he responded with a sly grin back.

**Authors note hey guys it's the 5/20 right now about to be the 5/21 idk if im going to school tomorrow I feel like crap its weird I have never had allergies before and now it hit me like a ton of trucks lol but if that's the case ill probably write like all day tomorrow if I don't go so expect like 4 chapters tomorrow if there isn't 4 or more then u know I went if there's only 1 u know I went thanks for the reviews guy I really appease it the more u tell me how u like the story the more I can do with it so I guess we will se what tomorrow brings I only have a few weeks of school so cant wait for that either then im out of that hell hole for summer**


	9. Chapter 9

"WE'RE NOT IN BAD SHAPE, SIR," ABERNATHY reported the day after Raynor's first encounter with Tassadar. She and Cavez were meeting with Raynor inside the shuttle to discuss their situation. "We have several sources of water now none of it particularly pure but all drinkable. The mushrooms are safe to eat and we've confirmed the presence of rodents and other small critters. We're rigging traps for them now. Hopefully we'll have fresh meat within a few days." "That's good too many of these rations and your stomach starts hankering for your boots," Raynor joked. "Did we manage to get anything else from the other shuttle or the lifepod?" He'd finally told his lieutenants about the lifepod, and they'd sent a team to examine it and to bury the bodies. "Not much," Abernathy admitted. "A few more rations, an extra blanket, and one more pack of detox pills." She shrugged. "We pulled every part that looked intact, too, but the biggest thing we need to fix is the engines, and those weren't any better than these." "Yeah. Well, we'll figure something out." He turned to Cavez. "That's the useful items how about the dangers?" The trooper shrugged. "Not much here, actually. Zerg, of course, though they haven't bothered us yet we think the protoss are keeping them busy." That they were, and Raynor had already told his lieutenants a little about that not enough for anyone to think anything but enough for his men to know the threat although hell Raynor thought I don't even know the threat he didn't think he had a threat except for the Overmind so he didn't figure out what he and Sara were planning. "No other large animals or even insects, and the small ones we've seen don't look poisonous. We do have to watch the terrain," he warned. "One of my men got scalded from stepping too close to one of those damn steam vents and Ling almost fell into a small crater he caught himself just in time but his helmet came off." Cavez looked grim.

"That crater was still hot. Cooked the helmet to slag in an instant. We've marked it so we don't step there by mistake, but any crater could still be live." "Can't we just avoid the ones they're smoking and coughing up lava?" Raynor asked. Cavez shook his head. "It's not that simple. Most of these things are dormant they're not spitting anything up anymore. But they're still problem is, when the lava sits for a while it apparently develops a thin skin over it, just like soup does. And the ash settles on that skin, blending it with the rest of the landscape. So it looks just like the ground everywhere else, but it's actually lava right under the surface."Raynor thought about it. "Don't we have infrared goggles? We can use those to check for hot spots." His lieutenants looked a little embarrassed. "Yes, sir," Cavez replied. "We've already got men doing that. But it'll take a while to mark all the spots nearby, let alone all the ones within that ten-mile radius." "Oh, right." Raynor felt stupid, and laughed at himself. "Guess that's what I get for thinking I'd turned clever," he admitted ruefully. "Okay, so we got zerg and we got steam and we got lava. Anything else trying to get us?" Both lieutenants shook their heads. "There might be unstable rock formations in the mountains," Abernathy pointed out, "but we aren't going there at the moment so it's not an issue." "Okay." Raynor scrubbed a hand over his face and

then through his hair. "Well, looking around kept everyone busy for a day. What're we gonna do tomorrow?" He looked to his two lieutenants for suggestions. "We can take apart the shuttle systems," Abernathy pointed out. "Put every man with electronics know how on shuttle detail, try to figure out what's been broken and what we can do to replace it." Raynor nodded. "That's good. But we can probably only get a few people working on this crate at a time. Say five at once?" The other two nodded. "Okay, put together three teams of five and get them on this. Rotate them around. What else?" "We're setting traps," Cavez reminded him. "For food." Right, right." He shrugged. "How many know how to trap and hunt?" "Only ten of us, sir." Cavez looked a little embarrassed. "I used to hunt with my uncle back home," he explained. "Nothing to be ashamed of," Raynor assured him. "Did a little of that myself, and I can probably still set a decent snare." He thought about it. "Okay, get those nine on trapping detail. You're in charge of that. Maybe we can set up a rotating detail to collect mushrooms and water and look for anything else edible." "We've got ten men checking the craters and marking the dangerous ones," Abernathy volunteered, guessing his next question. He gave her a smile in return. "Okay, that's a start, but let's put another ten on that if we've got enough IR goggles to go around." She nodded. "So that's what? Forty-five out of forty-nine?" They confirmed his math. "Set the last four to guard the camp, a roving patrol, and we're good. That'll keep everyone from panicking for another week at least." "What about the protoss, sir?" Abernathy asked. "Shouldn't we keep an eye on them, especially if they're fighting the zerg?" Raynor grinned at her. "Just leave that to me." Later that night The Raiders were all sitting around a lava fire due to Char getting extremely cold at night Jim was sitting there deep in thought with about a quarter of his crew loyal men, women all rallying around him but his numbers were dwindling he would soon be down to only a squad of men and women.

Damn! he thought pounding his fist on the ground startling everyone around him he needed to get these people off this Damn planet. But his mind started to drift he started thinking about all the things that have happened in his life. From his start with the confederacy to Mengsk to Sara and that's were his thoughts hit a abrupt halt he couldn't get over her he couldn't get her out of his head he had the same dream every night her in front of him wearing what seemed to be farmers clothing her back to him. And then he would start to walk tours her and when he got about a foot from her she would tern her fiery red hair not in its usual pony tail but left down to grow how it please. She would look at him with a smile she rarely ever used. It had something he rarely ever saw in Sara genuine happiness then he would reach her and she would fall into his arms.

The dream felt real. He could actually feel her weight pressed against him her hair brushing his neck then she would rest her head against her head against his shoulder and sit there and he would simply enjoy the scene then with the commanding voice of the Queen of Blades she would say beautiful isn't it this could have been us? Absolutely he would whisper now noticing they were standing on a hill over looking a farm house. Their farm house he owned it was his and Sara's he realized then Sara would say we could have had this if things had been different with all the sorrow from a 1000 lives and all the sorrow of everything she's ever felt all wrapped into one sentence. She craves this she needs this Jim thought she wants this as bad as I do. Yes a familiar voice yet commanding voice In his head and in reality said I do with all the confidence he could ever muster he would then look down at her form and see the glowing commanding orange yellow eyes staring back at him. The beautiful yet deadly carapace covering her body her wings folded inwards to make her look like an angel he would skimpily stroke her hair and lose himself in her eyes that's all he could ever do but something is different about tonight. Tonight she leaned into his ear and whispered I'm ready for you Jim come to me then she lightly bit his earlobe in a playful manner. Then she broke the embrace and in a playful voice Sara ran away giggling. With her fiery red hair flowing behind her not in it's typical pony tail how his heart felt hollow already. Commander he snapped out of his day dream to his aching bones and to find him and his crew sitting around a lava fire. Ya he mumbled rubbing his eyes what's up? Sorry sir I know you were dozing but we just had to ask what your plan is because so far you haven't given us any insight to it well he stood up shaking the remaining sleep out of his system in all honesty I don't have one I'm really just playing it day by day right now. But I need to tell you men something. Everyone was looking at the Commander with bulging eyes not knowing what he was going with this I Jim continued did something I cant quite explain it but its something intense what is it Sir Cavez asked him I cant tell you because in all honesty I don't know everything yet there's a lot of details that are fuzzy I just want to tell you its been an honor serving with each and ever one of you Jim made sure he made eye contact with every single person to make sure they knew he meant it I just want you to know that I love each and every one of you and I don't know if what I did will impact us in the next few days weeks, months, years I really don't know I just want you to know that I had a choice and I made it I don't know if it's the wrong choice or the right choice.

But I do know I think this is the choice I wanted to make and I've been waiting to make my whole life and silently to himself he whispered or at least I've waited since I met her. But just know guys that if this does happen in the next few days know I did not betray you I did not deceive you I did not lie to you. Ever but this is my choice how you chose to take it is on you but I hope you can at least understand why I made the choice I made and not judge to harshly until you know the whole story. With that last sentence he walked away he didn't know were he was going but he just walked his thoughts already drifting to her what she might be doing what she might be thinking about her beautiful carapace he elegant and deadly wings here dreadlock hair her glowing yellow eyes that had all the fire in them from when they first met and even more with the Zerg now following her every command out of fear and respect for her but Jim thought I'm going to be different I'm not following her out of fear I'm following her out of love I'm going to be the only one who's truly loyal to her. I'm glad to hear you say that Jim a voice said from behind him he quickly spun around and saw her simply standing there and smirking how long had he been walking minutes, hours? You know Jim if your not paying attention she started walking tourds him in probably the most seductive way he had ever scene swaying her hips like she was a fashion model. One things for sure Jim thought her confidence has gone way up then before he knew it there she was standing right in front of him. Yes it has darling she said showing her teeth like she was a predator and he was her prey he realized before I was scared to do this and before he could react he was wrapped up in a tight embrace making out with the one he loved only this time he had no say in it eventually Raynor accepted the embrace and put his arm around her and kissed back this he thought is what I want then before he could complain she broke the embrace and looked deep in his eyes and he looked in hers. Then Sara said do you trust me Jim all the playfulness gone from her voice and the only thing left is a commanding serious being. Of course darling. Of course I do Jim responded and with that she put her hand on his head and said then free your mind and let yourself embrace me and with that the world went dark.

Pov chance Cavez

Cavez followed the Commander because he wanted to maybe pull him aside and ask what he could have meant when he said things were going to happen. He was worried but as he started getting close enough to reach out and grab him. He realized something he was lost. Not lost on Char but lost in thought and he really wanted to know were he was going it seemed like his mind had no clue but his body did some part of him was looking for something so he dropped back and followed him not knowing were he just followed and what he saw he couldn't believe he just kept walking he didn't know for how long but it seemed like hours eventuality one figure snapped him out of his daze and that was a zerg he have no idea who she was but she must have been important the way her body radiated power her long scythe like blade wings that could rip him into a million pieces with a single thought. But wait a minute Cavez thought he did know her that's the women who attacked them when they were in the tunnels what Cavez could only assume as the one in the chrysalis and as he was about to pull out my pistol to defend Jim she spoke in a seductive yet playful voice like she knew him Cavez was to far to make out the words but he could hear the tone of voice then she walked the Commander and embraced him in a kiss and hug and they embraced each other like no matter how bad things get they were saying silently I will always be with you and as long as I'm always with you it will be alright and finally they broke the embrace and this strange alien with glowing orange/gold eyes said some more words and put her hand to his head he clearly make out her rough reptile like hands her sharp claws that could cut thought steel like butter and then Cavez watched as his commander pass out and fall into her embrace.

**Authors note sorry it took so long like i said in my last chapter ive been extremely sick and busy with the final weeks now i'm playing catch up in school after missing 4 days so i don't quite know what i expect but can you guys keep reviewing the story so i know if there's interest i'm not a writer. i'm just not i like reading other stories and connecting with my own in my head and seeing people who have like minded ideas but its just very hard for me to bring myself to sit down and write and its sad to say i'm running out of ideas for this like i have a single road i want the story to follow but i want details in the story that i just don't quite know how to add like the pov change i didn't think of that i came up with that on the spot but now i don't know were i want to go with it you know? but on top of that i don't like my writing style i just don't like the way i write and the words come out it just does not sound good in my opinion like if i read a book and then try to do that writing style of that book i botch it up like a train wreak i feel like idk no one has told e different i just get this negativity about the story but story's i read sound so much better like i am the voids story heart of the swarm like i love that story i absolutely love i've read it over 10 times and still have the same reaction every time it just that when i try to sort of use that as a guide line i botch it up horribly so thanks for reading guys give me you input i really need it right now **


	10. Chapter 10

CHAVEZ COULDN'T BELIEVE WHAT HE WAS SEEING

The self proclaimed Queen of Blades as she called herself was completely embraced around the Commander. Before Cavez knew what was happening she laid him gently on the ground unconscious.

This makes no sense Chavez thought this women this THING was sitting over Jim he could see her whispering into his ear Chavez had no clue if she had just infested the Commander or what had happened.

But what he did know is he had to get a squad they had to figure this out but before he could move to slink away her head jumped up and here glowing yellow eyes were blazing… At him!

Before he could do anything the Queen of Zerg was on him holding him in the air with psionics he was being violently choked and levitating about 5 feet in the air the queen was slowly walking tour's him enjoying seeing him struggle in pain.

Oh stop your struggling she said still slowly walking tour's him was top of the ghost academy before the zerg I was a level 10 phonic now with the zerg I'm a level 12 your resistance is useless she ended.

Now she added who are u and what to you WANT she finished throwing another blast at him to throw his head back with enough force to rip it off his body.

Cavez still struggling trying to speak suddenly dropped to the ground gasping into his rebreather trying to get air to fuel his burning lungs after a few seconds of gasping he finally looked up at the queen to try to plead his case so she wouldn't kill him.

Lieutenant Chavez first battalion D company with Rayners Raiders I'm here because the Commander wandered away from camp and I wanted to know that he was alright lots of stuff in the night with a twinge of bitterness in the last statement

Hmm Sara looked at this pitiful man one of Jim's raiders hmm pathetic she said out loud and lunched him about 20 ft away sliding on the ground.

Ahhhh he yelled sliding away from this women like a rag doll she hadn't touched him she hadn't needed to he thought I'm dead he finished I don't like peepers she said again walking tour's him all the menace in her voice from all the betrayal shes ever felt now she finally has something she wants and man is trying to take it away.

He would pay for his insolence but first she had more pressing matters to deal with turning back to Chavez she said i shall deal with u later and with here blade wings knocked him unconscious by smacking in the side of the head effectively sending him flying away.

With that she started walking back tour's Jim as he started to come to Sara was right next to him hi she whispered into his mind and he looked at her did u do what i think u did she simply nodded i'm letting the connection flow both ways so now u can reach me not as powerfully as i can but enough to send thoughts or conversations or if your in distress she finished.

Good now i can send all my dirty thought about you thought and give u graphic details about what i want to do to u Jim finished with a very deep and slightly evil chuckle Sara's response was to smack him in the back of the head you PIG! She laughed.

That's when Jim caught sight of Chavez and looked at Sarah what did you do he said as he looked into her glowing orange eyes I did she responded sadly what i'm programmed to do she slowly put her head into his shoulder its alright ill fix this you just get everything ready i'm here for u Sarah I love u he said as he picked up her head and kissed her now go I got this and without another word she got up and took her remaining zerg back to the hidden hive to wait for her commander and lover.

Jim waited till she was gone then ran over to Chavez man she did a number on you he said Chavez who was just coming to saw someone hunched over him and his training from the dominion kicked him he hit his attacker away and attempted to run only to be grabbed and put in a arm lock ENOUGH solder stop it finally he looked up and saw the man who was his hero one of the most hated men in all of the dominion Jim Raynor.

Sir? Chavez asked still not able to see him all that right it's alright son its alright he said letting him down to put his head in a hug you alright? Jim asked ya bit of a ahhhh Chavez cried digging his head further into Jim's shoulder shhhhh I know I know a headache shhhhh just relax let it go. Jim who is she? He asked into his his shoulder Jim didn't know how to respond he didn't want to play his hand yet if anyone found out it could be very bad for him he responded honestly she's the queen of blades he paused and… the love of my life Chavez just looked up to see Jim looking tour's the sun in thought he's head snapped back down to look Chavez in the eye. I know what your thinking how could it be possible but what don't know what no one will ever know and he paused what i'm about to tell u 4 people in this world know so if u say anything to anyone I will he stopped I promise you I will kill you Chavez had never heard Jim talk like that before he left her Jim started already with tears in his eye he sat on his knees the SON OF A BITCH LEFT HER he screamed violently punching the ground not realizing he was releasing a phonic storm.

POV change Sarah

The queen was busying herself with the zerg thinking about the conversation she just had with the Overmind.

5 minutes ago

My daughter his raspy voice echoed in her head yes father she responded not knowing what was about to come and then it hit her she was in front of the Overmind literally in the primary hive cluster he had projected her here she thought I know what you have don't he stated in a matter of fact tone her wings flared and her eyes lit up

Yes I did she simply said not likening were this conversation was going. Please my daughter calm down I know why you did it and while u were in the chrysalis I watched your thoughts I knew this would happen I hoped it would happen he finished.

Sarah was in utter shock what did he just say so what happens father if you have been in my mind you know how I feel on the matter you know i cant let go he was the only one out of every single human I have EVER met he was the only one who was different.

Sure she said with a wide smirk showing her canines and fangs he was a pig when I met him but deep down I saw something I didn't know what it was then but I do now she looked at the eye I will not let anything or ANYONE come for him or come between us she finished. I know my dear the eye said starting a deep chuckle which annoyed Sarah to no end she wanted to know what was going to happen was he going to be killed was she going to be ordered to kill him what was going to happen next. So my daughter what do you plan to do with him? I plan on doing whatever he wants me to do if he is willing to join me then he will be infested I've already talked to Abathur I will let this go the Overmind said looking at her I knew you would do this I foresaw this you are not complete without him I see that so long as it does not interfere with your allegiance to the swarm yes father Sarah ended

End flashback

Suddenly Sarah looked up and fell to the floor she felt something she knew was bad. Not only was Jim in distress. But he was more angry then he had ever been in his entire life she felt his anger his frustration and she knew what was causing it her and that thought broke her thought for the first time in years her shield broke and Sarah Kerrigan the cold calculating ghost. first a weapon of the confederacy then Mengsk now the current weapon of the zerg swarm cried.

** Authors note sorry guys I have been getting your reviews and messages etc I've had terrible writers block and i've had a lot of bad stuff happening in my life but for now I think i'm back I just could not bring my self down to write i'm on vacation so I should be writing all this week so I should be writing its been a combo of stuff from waiting and helping I am the void with his story props to him he makes a amazing story u never know what goes on in his head and I've gained a lot of respect for him over the past few weeks and month so I hope this makes up for my absence its just been bad lot of stuff happening and on top of that i'm moving once I get back from vacation so I hope to be able to continue I have so many ideas for this story and several others I want to start but I cant juggle them so I have I have to wait alright guys thank you for the support and I hope to keep going within the next few weeks.**


	11. Chapter 11

Jim Raynor sat there with his fists in the concrete. Jim Raynor one of the most hated men in Terran space Mengsk had seen to that he had used the media to brainwash the population into hating Jim and his troops he looked up to see as he looked up he saw several things one being Chavez had been blown several feet away Jim walked over to him with tears in his eyes he sat down. He left her he said quietly looking into the ground.

She disagreed with Mengsk and the son of a bitch left her to die now shes in the situation shes in because i couldn't save her the tears were flowing freely now and then she called to him i his mind i'm so sorry Jim i really am one day my beautiful knight we will be together some way.

He looked up to see her about maybe 100 yards away with a very pained expression on her face with a few guards with her. He could barely see her but he could clearly see her wings drooping and the agony in her voice. She felt his pain and she knew he blamed himself. Jim now realizing Chavez had not said a word looked at him so the Queen of Blades is a terran? yes a Terran/Zerg hybrid and a damn good one shes one of the best people he have ever known he said looking up he felt bad talking about her but what could he say he loved Sarah these feeling were not going away he cant fight her.

He knew that she knew he blamed himself but he couldn't help it He stood up and picked up Chavez Sarah he projected is there anyway to get my men home he asked Ill try and contact the hyperion but i have a problem i need to talk to u about alright Sarah ill be back let me get him home. alright Jim Sarah said softly turning her back to build her arm thinking about the conversation she just had with the Overmind.

Sarah it had rasped COME TO ME she shuttered what had father found why did he need to see her whats wrong every possibility flashed through her mind the Overmind had figured out her feelings about Jim. He had learned about the deal they made. He simply wanted to have a conversation with her discuss strategy. he wanted to have her work with celebrate closer anything could be the point of this conversation she ordered her brood to continue growing and went to find what her creator wanted.

She stepped up to him looking into his eye my... daughter i know what haunts your mind your thoughts in this Terran this Jim Raynor i know your thoughts on the matter before you think. No i'm not going to order you to kill him i know even if i forced you you would not. you couldn't hes as much apart of you and your life as your Terran and Zerg DNA you now have i see that now and i see what would happen if i did.

I know if it were any other Terran or Protoss for that matter they would be dead but not this one this one is special why? i don't know father she said her wings flaring slightly i know now i love him i cant be without him the thought of him hurt or dead brings more anger then i have ever felt. she said smiling hes different there's something about him as a ghost i was trained to ignore it but without that BASTERD Mengsk to tell me to or order me i cant its stronger then ever. i would do anything for him and if anything try's to come between us i will personally her wings now flaring out and her eyes looked like they were burning her sockets rip it to shreds and destroy anything close or allied to it i will see this sector burn before i see James Raynor dead she finished she didn't know if she had gotten her point across but she hoped she made enough of an impact.

I understand my Daughter and i approve of your feeling i will let this continue but let me leave you with this piece of advice tread carefully not many creature can understand why we do what we do or we are the way we are not many have the stomach for us. Your dismissed i tell you this daughter because tho you may not know it yet you have a great destiny with the Zerg be careful how you tread leave me now to my thoughts.

Jim with as much energy as he could muster with Chavez on his shoulder as he arrived at camp and called over the nearest medic as soon as he knew Chavez was alright he went back outside to deal with the mounting problems. Sir? one of his men called ya Jim answered what do u want us to do and when can we go after what ever hurt Chavez few of them already with rifles in hand. Jim's heart was in his throat there was no way he could let his men go after Sarah for 2 reasons 1 they would be absolutely dominated and 2 he couldn't allow anything to happen to Sarah if anything did happen his solders got a lucky shot or something

Mainly he was worried about the first one so he did what he thought was best he lied. i don't know what happened to Chavez it might of been something local or it could of been he just fell ill ask him when he wakes up alright Sir he could tell they were all irritated at his answer but what were they going to do what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them or him for that matter. With that he went outside to deal with his men and the moral of his men.

Sir? one of them asked wheres your mask. A few men had gathered around him and were looking at him with very confused expressions on there faces i left it behind he answered he knew this would come up sooner or later might as well answer it now. i guess I've adjusted to the air i'm able to breath without it Jake he called one of his captains what happened while i was gone i know he raised his hand to stop Jake from speaking its been hours. But something came up. Alright sir he said nothing much here people are he stopped he looked around and lowered his voice and moved in sir were getting low on food and have barely enough water.

We either need to figure something out or get out of here he finished. Alright he said looking at the map alright i need to make contact see if we can get something water or food anything really. Jake he said looking up yes Sir enough bro were brothers you and me enough with the formality's i need to do some stuff make contact and see what i can muster i want you to come with me i don't trust anyone else with what your going to see Jakes face went stone whats up dude what did you do? Jim turned around lets go bill he called bill looked up from tending to Chavez notify me when he wakes up Yes Sir.

Jake lets go i hope to get this done quick i hope things will go smoothly but i doubt it he said man i'm so used to shit moving in the opposite direction i don't know what i would do if something hooked up jake said smirking we will get through this man i promise anyway we got to get moving i hope to get this done. What are we doing anyway dude were leaving camp obviously but what for? i have to make contact with the other races your my guard Jim said one race i don't really know about i have a good feeling about but still a little shaky and the other i'm not a big fan of so but seem the most likely to have something for us but i guess we will see. Wait Jake said stopping in his tracks were going to visit the Protoss and the Zerg?

The Protoss i can see but the Zerg dude what the hell? have you lost it? No Jim said just do you trust me? after all the stuff we have been through do you trust me? yes dude i do but i still don't like it. Aright he said if i go limp just sit there i know this sounds weird bro but u got to trust me he said sitting down Sarah? you there after a few moments he got a replay yes Jim what do you need i need a meeting can we meet? give me a little while Jim i'm a little pre occupied here one moment all of a sudden before he could blink he was seeing the world not only in Sarah's vision but the with the Zerg advanced eye sight he was looking at a hatchery Sarah was spawning Units Sarah he said slightly panicked what do you plan doing with all these units silence there was no reply i'm sorry were going after the protoss they have come after me the attacked us ME specifically they attacked my hive i cant let that go Jim you know that alright Sarah i'm not telling you to but i want to be apart of this maybe i can figure something out let me know when we can wait alright Jim... i love you Sarah.

I love you to Jim with that he was back in his own body on his back with Jake sitting next to him noticing that his friend was awake he started o'k Jim sorry for being blunt but what the fuck was that you just stopped i feel like your spirit left you there was nothing you were just a baking corpse. Sorry bro that was something i cant explain its not that i wont explain it its that i literally cant explain it come on were burning daylight we will meet with the protoss first alright bro you are going to explain what you can right? ya bro i will ill try i have a feeling things are going to hype up pretty quick what do you mean by that Jim ill tell you later dude were here.

As soon as they walked into the Protoss encampment Jim could tell what happened by the amount of wounded and the way most of the Zelots and Warriors were gathered around the war tent with Zeratul and Tassadar hey Jake sit back a few feet i know these guys alright bro but anything happens i'm there thanks bro with that Jim walked into the war tent Tassadar Zeratul rasped if we hit her here instead of here we could cripple a bigger part of her army and might have the chance to kill one of those commanders known as what are they Zertaul said drawing a blank.

Cerebrate Jim answered ahhhhhh Friend Raynor what do we owe the pleasure of your presence i need to speak to you 2 privily if i may Alright Friend Raynor. We will finish this meeting later Leave us with that the Templar's began to shuffle out until only Jim,Zeratul and Tassadar were left Alright Raynor Tassadar spoke for the first time since Jim entered the tent what do you need from us well guys i need 3 things 1 do you guys have any food or water any supply we can have or buy off you or anything.

My men need food and quite frankly it would boost moral Friend Raynor we do not have much you can take what you need Zeratul rasped thank you Zeratul appreciate it now for my second point when are you guys leaving? we need to get out of here off this fiery hell once we purify the Zerg off of this planet and kill the she devil known as the Queen of Blades Tassadar said great Jim said which leads me to my third point there's going to be war isn't there? there's nothing you guys can do to try and avoid that is there. Afraid not friend Raynor Kerrigan's Fate is set Tassadar purred with a bit of pity in his voice Jim guessed Zeratul had told him a little about Jim's situation alright guys thank you with that he turned out of the tent how did it go Jake said when he got close not as well as i liked but well enough not be a failure Raynor Zeratul rasped from behind him.

I have had visions be aware your path is about to become a lot harder you will be forced with a choice that will change this era thank you Zeratul do you know when this choice will be? no i do not friend Raynor i'm sorry its alright Zeratul thank you you've been a good friend good luck Raynor alright Jake lets get these supply's back to camp.

With that they said good bye to the Protoss and set out as soon as they got out of range of the camp Jake started alright bro so i feel like since were going to see the Zerg we need a fall back plan something in case this and may i say idiotic plan of yours does not work alright bro Jim said if it will help your ahhhh Jim yelled toppling over GOD DAMNIT he screeched with the worst migraine hes ever had it felt like someone had tore open his skull and was tearing all the bone and fragments out of his head Jim you alright Jake said feeling slightly panicked ya ya im good lets get back to camp then i can figure out what the hell that was he said Jake held out his hand to help him up as soon as they started walking again he heard her Sorry Jim that was my fault here let me see if i can she faded off as did his headache thanks darling but what the hell happened what did you do.

That was my Scream Jim i Screamed in rage and i let out a Phionic shock why Sarah whats wrong. One of the Broods attacked your camp no dead just attacked to make a statement he saw you talking to the protoss hes now a bloody pile of organs in front of me she said still having menace in her voice this is bullshit she yelled in his head he said you would not be harmed i wonder if he had something to do with this she trailed off now realizing she had revealed the Overmind to Jim who had something to do with it Sarah please if i'm going to chose you there needs to be trust both ways. Hes the eternal will of the Swarm hes my creator my Zerg side at least he gave me permission to move forward and induct you into the Swarm if you wished i made my point very clear what i wanted done with you.

Alright Sarah i trust you can we meet now we need to talk. alright Jim give me a moment to clean up the mess i just happily made and ill meet you ok you then Jake Jiim said we got to get back to camp now we were attacked lets go he said not giving Jake a chance to ask how he knew that. As soon as they got in camp Jim could tell it wasn't bad some tents were ripped and there were tracks on the ground a few people were injured but that was it nothing to bad.

Chavez was up and walking around he wasn't any more injured which was good Sir good to see you we got hit while you were gone i know son i took care of it its not going to happen again he said aware that Jake was staring at him how could Jim take care of something without talking to someone unless he told the protoss when Jim was at the camp Chavez you good to travel? yes Sir alright i need you to come with me i don't think anything is going to happen i'm going to try and find a way to get us out of here i trust you guys to react accordingly and keep your heads on i trust you to that's why your going alright they both nodded lets go hopefully this will be quick with that they set off.

When they got to the meeting point Jim just sat down might as well get comfortably boys were going to be here a little while alright now when she gets here you guys need to keep your thoughts quiet alright i trust her with my life i would do anything for her if she told me to grab my gun and someone was going to kill her and the only way i could save her is for me to die i would pull the trigger i would think long and hard if i could break her out or kill the person trying to hurt her but if it came down to it i would die if i needed to for her.

On top of that i wouldn't do anything because she could kill you in a matter of seconds without even looking at you. Shes one of the most powerful yet beautiful girls I've ever met. Awww that's so sweet Jim glad you cant tell me that to my face she said with a slight chuckle you were never one for humor Sarah you weren't very funny before that's why you keep me around right. Ya right Jim alright boys shes coming lets go with that Jim looked up and saw she was coming over the hill with 2 hunter killers as personal bodyguards when she got within arm length she stopped Jim she said smirking slightly Sarah he replied back still just starring at each other finally after a few seconds she smirked come here she said with that Jim embraced his true love he could tell Chavez and Jake were starring at him with there Jaws open in awe then Jake spoke so your Sarah Karrigan Sarah looked up at the mention of her you know me?

She asked with her brow raised no i don't Jake said but Jim has mumbled your name in his sleep a few times some of the guys were messing with him they put something under his shoulder and he started talking about how nice it was that you were there and how kind and gentle you are and how soft you felt, how it felt good to have you close to him. Really Sarah said smirking that's so sweet she said putting her head on Jim's shoulder while still looking at Jake i can see what you do to this man Sarah and i'm not an idiot i can see what you are but Jim knows i'm with him 100% wherever he goes i go this man is my best friend. I know it might sound cheesy. But i cant really describe it i see his feelings for you it doesn't take a genus to figure out he cares otherwise we wouldn't be on Char if he didn't.

I don't know whats going to happen in the next few weeks but just treat this man right hes one of the best people i know and one of the only people i know who deserve to be happy if you bring that happiness i accept that thank you Jake this is what i meant still holding Sarah in his arms rocking back and forth slightly i didn't betray you guys i had no control over this. Sarah walked into my life and life is like ok your going to love this girl because what the hell i told you to we've been thrown through a loop but we made it out on top so far haven't we darling yes we have she said smiling thinking back to a particular hairy assassination her and Jim escaped from just barely but they made it ya that was the fun times wasn't it babe Jim said invading her thoughts Sarah head suddenly looked into his eyes the links getting stronger isn't it? she asked i think it is i wasn't able to do that before a few days ago he said smiling alright Sarah we need to get to the meat of why i wanted to meet up not just to see you tho all tho that was a lot of the reason for it but is there anyway you can get us out of here Sarah if you cant can you get us some food or water were dangerously low and its really killing moral

I can try Jim i don't know what i will come up with but i can try the zerg eats creep the purple stuff that's around our bases and hives we have no need for food but like i said ill try Jim anything to get you out of here and i have a feeling if you really run out of food you wont eat until everyone has eaten you will starve yourself and risk yourself your right Sarah my men come first i need to get them out of here we need to contact my ship the whole reason it left is i didn't know if your Zerg would invade the ship when you were on one of dukes ships oh ya Chavez said finally breaking his long silence while just listening to the conversation scanning the landscape what happened to that asshole he fled after i contacted him for possible evac sorry about that Jim that wasn't my brood the problems been taken care of she said with a dark chuckle licking here claws all of a sudden the world exploded around them and before Jim could focus there were Templar's and Zealots everywhere one one side of them and a major detail Jim quickly realized was his men were among all the Protoss warriors but them now seeing that Jim was there started breaking off tourds Jim so now you had a triangle Zerg Protoss and Terrans all glaring at each other Zeratul Jim bellowed what are you doing i'm sorry friend Raynor this is war the Zerg attacked once more after you left we think Karrigan was behind it she must die.

Stupid Protoss Sarah hissed with her wings clinking together hungry for Protoss blood had i wanted you dead you would be if i was behind it i would not have left any loose ends but that will all end now as her wings flew forward to impale one of the nearby Templar's Jim dove forward just in time to save the warrior and as suddenly as it started the wings were inches from his face with Jim squeezing his eyes shut he heard the wind whistle as the wings flew brought the air as he opened his eyes to see Sarahs eyes on fire. Literally they looked like they were straight flames Jim probably would of crapped himself had her anger been directed at him but he could see she was looking over him at Zeratul behind him Sarah you cant do this not now i know how bad you want to but if you do this there is no coming back and on top of that were in the middle please he finished knowing she would for one simple fact he asked her to slowly after sitting there for what felt like a week she lowered her wings and slowly backed away well Raynor Tassadar Said from behind him it seems after all this time of being a neutral party you must choose what side you wish to be on Prostoss or Zerg you know your options now choose he finished.

Jim was screaming on the inside NO this could not be happening before he could respond Jake stepped up to him and put his hand on his shoulder and said bro you know were here we all trust your judgment you will get us out of here one way or another we trust you and with that he stepped back. Jim first looked at Tassadar who's eyes were cold and unreadable then to Zeratul who's eyes were full of sadness he knew whoever Jim chose it would kill him one way or another if he chose Protoss it kills the love of his life and he has to fight her which was the whole reason they made the deal in the first place. If he chose Zerg hes allying himself with the love of his life but very unlikely ally's who could kill him at any time and who's he been trained to kill since he joined the rebellion with Mengsk and started this war. Jim had no clue but at least his men were with him he took a look at all there faces they could be dead depending on the choice he made. But he had to Chose Sarah or Zeratul he would choose...

** Authors note: MWWHAHAHAHAHA cliff hanger i'm evil am i not long wait then a cliff hanger lol lets see who gets that reference lol anyone if anyone does your awesome any ways guys sorry about the long wait i had like over 2000 characters and i clicked the wrong button and it deleted everything i'm still pissed about it i cant believe i did that i had such a good intro and i lost it. sorry about repeating the segment with the overmind in chapter 10 i just felt this was a bit better a lot more in detail. i'm moved now so i got everything together or at least most of my stuff together shits just been upside down nothing hooked up for me and I've been extremely depressed as of late and the jake character i added that's a personal thing i want him in the story my boy jake has been there through and through i love that man hes one of the coolest people i have ever known i just thought since tycus isn't in this i could replace him i hate tycus hes a dick i really didn't see how Jim was friends with him like i can see the partner ship but i don't see friends after tycus talks shit and the bar fight idk i just didn't see it i guess but no jakes my best friend he knows me and i know him so i threw him in there i figure it might help later on anyway later guys i'm going to try to keep writing i love this story its just hard tho i'm out of ideas if anyone wants to message and help out ill throw a shout out there thanks guys later on.**


	12. Chapter 12

Jim didn't know who he would choose but he had to choose soon he looked over to the protoss. Specifically at Zeratul who seemed the most connected with the future. His face offered no guidance but his eyes did this was Jim's choice and his alone and based on what he did it would change everything. He then looked at Sarah the women he loved. the girl he would do anything for if anything ever happened to her even if she was changed like she was right now she was still his Sarah she just slowly backed up to her guards with a smirk and then he heard her. Her voice loud and commanding moving majestically over the landscape she was back in her Queen mode showing no fear and no emotions except what she was saying. Jim putting his head down to let her beautiful voice flow through him like a flowing river.

I will not make him choose despite what you may think of me and my choices in this matter Protoss her last words a sneer. I love this man standing in front of you if he chooses it will be on his own accord and on his own terms I will not be apart of your twisted game he will choose when he decides he is ready until that day I will not force him she finished but know this puny protoss if you ever try and make him choose I will end every one of your miserable lives. I will slowly pull out all of your entrails And put them back into your the way I see fit ill make you eat your own entrails .

Sarah he said his head snapping up no there right I cant live half in half out. Its going to me killed so Protoss you wish to know my choice? Zeratul knows my choice don't you Zeratul? Indeed I do my friend he has chosen the zerg and the women he loves with that Jim started to walk to Sarah when he reached her he pulled her into a loving embrace.

She slowly put her head on his shoulder. You don't have to do this Jim this is your choice I would never want to make you do anything you would regret you're the one person I don't want to push away you've always been there I never want you to go away she finished nuzzling his neck. Don't worry Sarah this is my choice and you're my choice. With that they finally broke away. Jim stood there holding her hand looking at his marines. This is my choice I'm choosing for me everyone of you are free to make your own choice if you think the protoss are your best chance to get the hell of this planet he paused. Then you take it he said keeping his eyes steady on Chavez and Jake every one of you are free.

With that he turned to the protoss. There will be no battle today go home mourn your dead and figure out your next move but know the next time we meet he said signing slightly we will not be friends everything that happens is fair game with that Him Sarah and her hunter killers turned around and headed back to the Zerg encampment.

Jim did not want to look back but he knew he had to he had to know who followed him and who left. He knew eventually they would meet again but that would be the last time this was his and Sarah time now together they would overcome anything he could feel her in his mind and she could feel him in hers they were intertwined just like there hands Jim looked behind him and his jaw dropped everyone of his men were following him they all believe he was there best hope for them to get out of her if he thought the zerg was the path to choose then they would do what they needed to that didn't mean everyone of them were comfortable with it he could see some were walking close to loved ones or there eyes were searching for deception among Sarah.

That she might turn on them at any moment but Jim knew she wouldn't its not that she couldn't she could easily kill all of them right now with a single swipe of her blades. But she wouldn't her wings were curled in delight instead of searching for something to chop and hack to pieces. Her eyes were glowing with pleasure and happiness. That the one she loved chose her even though he might lose his men or be ridiculed and hated not that he wasn't already by the dominion.

But through all odds and through her transformation he still stayed with her. He was with her and believed in her. So sir now that were with the Zerg what's next Chavez says jogging up to stand on Jims other side away from Sarah he trusted the commander but he didn't really know about this tall women with blades on almost every part of her body. Well I think what's next is to go after the protoss we aren't neutral anymore I made my choice now were fair game were going to go to camp Sarah he said looking at her were are you at the cave I found you?

He said in her mind you think we should move or don't bother? I don't think it's worth it Jim ill post some Zerg on the outskirts of camp to keep watch and if you want to come with me I need to present you to father and see what he says to you. Oh yes this is going to be interesting with that Sarah stopped Jim I need to give you something from what you told me about your past you might be able to control some Zerg not many with your current form but if you decide you want infestation it should unlock your full potential but for now you could probably control a small brood.

Here lets see she said putting a hand to his temple he felt her claw connect then he felt it what she was talking about when he first saw her to hive mind the will of the collective he could feel some of the Zerg there thoughts and most of all he could feel Sarah among them she was the second strongest out of the Overmind but she was there he could feel her radiance. Her feelings her love for the Zerg and her love for him. He could feel her devotion to the Swarm it was overwhelming then he focused and opened his eyes and looked into her eyes his love for her only grew he wrapped her in his embrace and she embraced back HOLY SHIT commander your eyes.

What Jim said confused yes Jim your eyes are glowing yellow like mine I can see your fire in your eyes and in his mind he heard its hot, it turns me on she purred. He couldn't help but smirk his response was to take Sarah in a deep passionate kiss a few of his men clapped and a few whistled Sarah flipped them a rude gesture but continued kissing there tongues battling for dominance finally they broke apart Sarah showing a deep predatory grin. Let's go I have some plans for you she said walking ahead so he could look at her behind the way she swayed it was seductive yet controlled it was a tease. Jake was suddenly next to him. Damn bro I have nothing else to say but Damn. Jim just chuckled if you had any idea how deep we went bro you would go insane the way I feel about Sarah I don't even think I felt about my wife. Sarah she's something extremely special she's one of a kind of girl bro.

I can't explain it I don't think there's anything she hasn't been through. Its messed up bro I just want something to go right in her life for once i'm not even saying me or anything I just want something that brings her joy to be given to her she deserves it more then anyone I know. I feel privileged to have known her and given a chance when every guy was swatted away. It makes me wonder though why me? You know I mean I'm sure most guys wonder but a girl like Sarah she a bit of a loner a wolf in sheep's clothing. Why did she choose me? Suddenly Sarah stopped and spun around why did I choose you? She asked advancing on him Jim slowly backed back but not fast enough because she was on him in a moment her face inches from his.

A simple Sheriff on Mara Sara turned freedom fighter, fighting because he knew it was right. Doing anything he could to stop the confederacy. Then risked everything to try and make me happy when I fist met you. Even if you could just get a simple laugh out of me that was enough for you. Then risked everything to come to Char the Zerg strong hold to find and see me and bring me back even though some say i didn't deserve it that is why i chose you because you are one of the best people i have had the honor of meeting even though you thought insanely dirty of me which was you showing your affection. who's been there through and through even when i don't want you to be there your there that is a real man you have stuck by me through everything and i know will continue to be there for me because he does what his heart thinks is right even if his heart might not agree with that she swung back and took to flight into the air oblivious Jim's conversation had irritated her. The fact he thought so little of what he did for people. In all reality he knew what he did made a difference but it really didn't hit home with him he didn't know what it felt like there was no good feeling you don't wake up every morning and go i'm a hero i feel great. It doesn't work lie that it was hard to acknowledge what Jim did because of that fact.

after about 20 minutes of walking they came back to camp. Sarah was already there and setting some things up around camp to make it more Zerg friendly he came up behind her he didn't want her to be mad at him even if she wasn't really mad at him she was mad that he took everything he did so insignificantly especially since a lot of those things he did were directed at her or for her. He came up behind her and wrapped his arms under her arms and held them right above were her belly button would be and laid his head against her shoulder.

I'm sorry Sarah its hard to remember that the stuff i do has an impact on you a lot more then most people including most of my crew. Its alright Jim she mumbled back swaying back and forth in his arms enjoying the feeling of having him close you just need to realize you really are a hero i know its hard because of Mengsk but its true all the things you have done in the name of humanity and hell you even helped the protoss a few times.

Thank you Sarah i appreciate you being next to me and not killing me when you got out of the chrysalis. Sarah let out a quiet chuckle your the only one who could ever hurt me Jim i'm not going to give you a reason your the only one ever since the confederacy and Mengsk i have ever let get close enough to know my scars and you still have not pulled away even right now hanging onto me she said spinning around to face him. Jim i'm now part Zerg you know what that means right Jim shook his head Jim you have killed Zerg since day one you have killed and killed and been trained to kill when i saw you i expected you to at the very least get the hell away from me at the most shoot me because of the Zerg.

But when you said you wanted to be with me you threw everything away all the conspiracy's all your past fights all the years of killing to look past the carapace and look down into my eyes your the only man who has ever try to go that deep she finished. Putting her head on his shoulder and practically purring in delight. That's why i chose you when you learned about me you took every one of my burdens on yourself when i never asked you to and looked for any possible way to make my life better.

Any possible way to make a moment of my day or my whole day better when i needed someone you were always first in line Mengsk saved me and he wasn't in line that's for Damn sure i was an idiot Jim she said a tear sliding down her cheek i didn't owe him anything and i thought i did she said hugging him even harder and tighter. Jim looked out over the land and reached out and closed the tent they were standing in so no one could see the fearsome Queen of Blades vulnerable it would make her life harder then the level 10 difficulty out of the level 12 difficulty. Its alright darling its alright i'm always here i promise. I know you are Jim i just cant help but think what my life would be like as much as i hate to think about it if Mengsk didn't find me i would of never have met you and never felt this way who knows were i would be right now. But Jim said bringing his hand under her chin we are here and were together NOTHING will tear us apart except each other as long as we are happy nothing will ever tear us apart with that he moved in and planted a kiss on her forehead i love you Sarah i'm here Sarah i'm never going away ever.

**Authors note: Hey guys so something extremely unexpected happened the other day so I think I'm going to be writing a bit because I'm in a bit of pain but I had a little trouble with this chapter for one reason and one reason only. Sarah she's such a complex character so I had to figure out how I wanted to present her so to speak. Because if you remember if you read the novel or the game when they first met Jim asked Sarah is that you and she responds to and extent I'm far more then what I once was and I feel like that could be interpreted several ways you know? It could mean it's her human side but she just has more power and just has more violent thoughts running through her head like when she sees a human it's not ok is this person an enemy or friend or what will this person do. Its how can I murder this person in the most violent and painful way possible? Or if it's the way the game interpits her she's got a human side and a zerg side that's separate and her zerg sides in control. It makes every single fan fiction interesting because it's never the same it depends on what the Author believes how his interruptions of Karrigan are you know what I mean? I feel it's a lot harder to write a Starcraft 1 fan fiction or before Starcraft 2 rather then a heart of the swarm fan fiction because she's human then and stays human in not saying I don't like her during heart of the swarm but I feel writing a hots Fanfiction is a lot easier she has a lot less layers then she does now what do you guys think? How do you believe Sarah is do you think her Zerg side is in control or if she's human with different thoughts running through her head I think if she's got different thought it would make getting changed back a lot more messed up because now she has to come to things she had control over although being "caged" is pretty messed up to. Because then she has to come face to face with all the stuff she did but didn't do. Anyway please review and tell me how you like the story. Your feedback is impeccable to the story thanks guys later.**


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